
* \ 



V ^ 



\ 



'i>r 






<! 



,^^'"^/- 



:^s 






^ 



■^ 



ALFRED TENNYSON. 



THE 



POETICAL WORKS 



OF 



A 



H 



H 



H 




ILLUSTRATED. 




PHILADELPHIA: 

PORTER & COAXES. 

.900 Chestnut Street. 



6- 



L' -^ i^ 



^^!; 



6 
^'^" 



COPYRIGHT 1882, 

BY 

G. W. BORLAND & CO. 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 



Gift 
Attg. 6. 1^ 



//'■ 



PAGE. 

ADDRESS TO THE QUEEN i 

POEMS AND SONGS. (Published A. D. 1830) 3 

riaribel (A Medley) 5 

^ Nothing \vill Die 6 

All Things will Die 7 

The Kraken 8 

Lilii^A 9 

Isabel , ro 

Mariana 11 

To 14 

Madeline 15 

We are Free , 16 

Songs— The Owl 17 

Second Song to the Same 17 

Recollections of the Arabian Nights .* 18 

Ode to Memory. Addressed to 23 

Song — "A Spirit haunts the year's last hours " 27 

The Poet 28 

The Poet's Mind , 30 

Sea Fairies 31 

ToJ. M. K 32 

The Deserted House , 33 

A Dirge 34 

A Character 36 

Adeline 37 

■ Supposed Confessions of a second-rate Sensitive Mind not in Unity with Itself. . . . , 39 

Hero to Leander * 44 

The Burial of Love 46 

The Mystic 47 

Elegiacs 48 

The" Dying Swan ' 49 

The Ballad of Oriana 50 

The Merman 53 

-^ The Mermaid 54 

Circumstance 55 

Love and Death 56 

To Juliet 56 

Timbuctoo i 57 

The Grasshopper 63 



7 



CONTENTS. 



To a Ladj Sleeping 64 

Chorus (In an unpublished drama, written very early) '65 

National Song , 66 

English War Song 67 

Love 6S 

The "How" and the "Why" 70 

Ol pioureq 71 

Dualisms. . 72 

Love. Pride and Forgetfulness 75 

Lost Hope 73 

Love and Sorrow , 74 

SOXNETS : 

i. " The lintwhite and the throstlecock " 75 

ii. "Though Night hath climb'd her peak of highest noon '' 76 

iii. " Shall the hag Evil die with child of Good " , 76 

iv. " I' the glooming light" 77 

V. "Could I outwear my present state of woe" 77 

vi. " The pallid thunderstricken sigh of gain " 78 

vii. "Every day hath its night" 78 

viii. The Tears of Heaven 79 

POEMS AND SONGS. (Published A. D. 1832) 81 

The Lady of Shalott 83 

Mariana in the South 90 

Eleanore .' 93 

, The Miller's Daughter .• 97 

Fatima 104 

CEnone 105 

The Sisters * 113 

To , (with the following poem) 114 

The Palace of Art ! 115 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere 125 

The May Queen 128 

New Year's Eve 130 

Conclusion 132 

The Lotos-Eaters 135 

Choric Song 137 

A Dream of Fair Women 141 

Margaret 151 

The Blackbird 153 

The Goose 154 

O Darling Room 156 

The Death of the Old Year 157 

To J S 158 

Freedom 161 

You Ask Me Why 162 

Love Thou Thy Land 163 

A Fragment 166 

No More 167 

Anacreontics 167 

POEMS AND SONGS. (Published A. D. 1833) 169 

The Hesperides 171 

Rosalind 174 



CONTENTS. 



To 176 

Kate 177 

Sonnets : 

i. " Mine be the strength of spirit full and free " 178 

ii. Who Can Say 179 

iii. To Christopher North 179 

iv, " Caressed or chidden by the slender hand" . 179 

V. Poland iSo 

vi. " How long, O God, shall men be ridden down" 180 

vii. " Wan Sculptor, weepest thou to take the cast " 180 

viii. " Me my own fate to lasting sorrow doometh " 181 

ix. " Check every outflash, every ruder sally " 181 

X. Alexander 182 

xi. Buonaparte , 182 

xii. To 183 

xiii. "The form, the form alone is eloquent! " , 183 

xiv. " O bridesmaid, ere the happy knot was tied "......... 183 

XV. " O beauty, passing beauty, sweetest sweet " 184 

xvi. " But were I loved as I desire to be " 184 

E-NGLISH IDYLS AND OTHER POEMS. (Published A. D. 1842) 185 

The Epic. 187 

Morte D'Arthur 188 

The Gardener's Daughter ; or, The Pictures 197 

Dora 204 

Audley Court 210 

W^alking to the Mail 213 

Edwin Morris; or, The Lake 216 

St. Simeon Stylites 221 

The Talking Oak 227 

Love and Duty 237 

The Golden Year 240 

Ulysses , 243 

Come Not, When I am Dead 245 

Locksley Hall 246 

Godiva. : 255 

The Two Voices 258 

The Day-Dream 272 

Prologue 272 

The Sleeping Palace 273 

The Sleeping Beauty 274 

The Arrival 275 

The Revival 276 

The Departure 278 

Moral 279 

L'Envoi 279 

Epilogue 281 

Amphion. 281 

AVill Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue 284 

To E. L., on his travels in Greece , 291 

Lady Clare 292 

Sir Galahad 296 

St. Agnes' Eve 299 

To , after reading a Life and Letters 300 

The Lord of Burleigh 302 



CONTENTS. 



The Poet's Song 304 

Edward Gray 305 

Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere 307 

The Eagle 308 

The Beggar Maid 309 

A Farewell 310 

The Vision of Sin 311 

Move Eastward, Happv Earth 317 

" Break, break, break " 318 

THE PRINCESS : A MEDLEY. (Published A. D. 1847) 319 

Prologue 321 

Conclusion 401 

IN MEMORIAM A. II. H. (Published in 1850) 405 

ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON 505 

MAUD AND OTHER POEMS. (Published in 1855) 513 

Maud: A ]SIonodrama 515 

The Brook (An Idyl) 554 

The Daisy (written at Edinburgh) 562 

To the Rev. F. D. Maurice 566 

The Charge of the Light Brigade 568 

Will 570 

The Grandmother ■ 571 

The Letters ..' 574 

ENOCH ARDEN. (Published in 1864) 577 

OCCASIONAL POEMS AND SONGS * 605 

Ajlmer's Field. (1793) 607 

Sea Dreams 629 

Northern Farmer — Old Style 637 

Northern Farmer — New Style 639 

Resquiescat 641 

Tithonus 642 

The Voyage 644 

Lucretius , 647 

The Higher Pantheism 654 

The New Timon and the Poets 655 

The Skipping-Rope 656 

On a Mourner 657 

The Flower. 658 

The Captain. (A Legend of the Navy) 659 

The Ringlet 661 

The Islet 663 

Wages 664 

The Victim 66^, 

The Sailor B03' , 667 

After-Thought 668 

Ode Sung at the Opening of the International Exhibition 669 

Sonnet to William Charles Macreadj 670 

Stanzas 671 

The Third of February, 1852 671 



CONTENTS. 



Britons, Guard Your Own 673 

Hands All Round „ 675 

The War 677 

A Welcome to Alexandra (March 7, 1863) 678 

England and America in 1782 „ . . 679 

On a Spiteful Letter 680 

A Dedication 681 

1865-1866 681 

In the Valley Cauteretz 682 

Song — " Lady, let the rolling drums "... , , 682 

Song — " Home thej brought him slain with spears " 682 

EXPERIMENTS: 

Boadicea „ 683 

In Quantity „ 686 

Milton 686 

Specimen of a Translation of the Iliad in blank verse 688 

THE WINDOW, OR THE SONGS OF THE WRENS. 691 

On the Hill 693 

At the Window 694 

Gone 694 

Winter „ 695 

Spring , 695 

The Letter 696 

No Answer 697 

No Answer 697 

The Answer 698 

When.? 699 

Marriage Morning 699 

DESPAIR. (Published A. D. 1881) 701 








*^^aii^iiieiMiiSPeiSiilieMS^ 



PORTRAIT OF ALFRED TENNYSON Frontispiece 

ADDRESS TO THE QUEEN, 

Ornamental Title xv 

Illustrated Heading i 

POEMS AND SONGS. (Published A. D. 1830.) 

Ornamental Title 3 

Claribel. 

" But the solemn oak-tree sigheth " 5 

Lilian 9 

Mariana. 

She wept, " I am aweary, aweary, 

O God, that I were dead !" 13 

The Owl i? 

Recollections of the Arabian Nights. 

Illustrated Heading c 18 

" Anight my shallop, rustling thro' 

The low and bloomed foliage " 18 

*' Bearing on my shallop thro' the star-strown calm " 19 

*'Then stole I up, and trancedly 

Gazed on the Persian girl alone " .* 21 

Ode to Memory. 

" The seven elms, the poplars four 

That stand beside my father's door " 24 

" Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat 
Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds " 25 

The Poet's Mind. 

" From the brain of the purple mountain 
Which stands in the distance yonder " 30 

Sea Fairies. 

Illustrated Heading 31 

The Deserted House. 

" Thro' the windows we shall see 

The nakedness and vacancy « 
Of the dark deserted house" 33 

A Dirge. 

Illustrated Heading .^r... 34 

Adeline. 

" Wherefore those dim looks of thine 

Shadowy, dreaming Adeline .'"' 37 

" Hast thou looked upon the breath 38 

Of the lilies at sunrise.^" 

Supposed Confessions. • 
" The lamb rejoiceth in the year, 
And raceth freely with his fere" , 43 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Hero to Leander. 

" No Western odors wander 

On the black and moaning sea" .- 45 

The Dying Swan. 

" With an inner voice thie river ran, 
Adown it floated a dying swan " 49 

The Mermaid 54 

The Grasshopper. 

Flower Ornament 64 

National Song. 

Arms of Great Britain 66 

Love, 

Illustrated Heading . .., 68 

The " How " and the " Why." 

*' Why the heavy oak grows, and the white willows sigh ?" yo 

» The little bird pipeth— why .? why .=*" 71 

Dualisms. 

" Over a stream two birds of glancing feather 
Do woo each other, carolling together " 72 

Sonnets. 

" The lintwhite and the throstlecock" 7^ 

" Showering down the glory of lightsome day " 70 

POEMS AND SONGS. (Published A. D. 1830.) 

Ornamental Title. 81 

The Lady of Shalott. 

" When the moon was overhead. 

Came two young lovers, lately wed " 85 

^ " Thick-jeweird shone the saddle-leather." , 86 

" Out flew the web and floated wide" 87 

MAiiiANA IN the South. 

'* Nor bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat" gi 

Eleanore. 

"Thunder-clouds . . . grow golden all about the sky " 915 

The Miller's Daughter. 

The Miller's Daughter 97 

" Each morn my sleep was broken thro' 

By some wild skylark's matin song " 98 

CEnone. 

" Hear me O earth, hear me O hills, 

Ocaves" _.. 106 

" Then to the bower they came. 
Naked they came to that smooth-swarded bower. 
And at their feet the crocus brake like fire " .' 113 

The Palace of Art. 

" The iron coast and angry waves " 117 

" Uther's deeply wounded son watched by weeping queens " iig 

"The reapers at their sultry toil " 120 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere. 
" You pine among your halls and towers '' 127 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



The May Queen. 

Butterfly and Roses 128 

'• You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear " , 129 

" Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me Queen of May " 130 

" I thought that it was fancy, and I listen'd in my bed " 133 

The Mother, Effie and Robin 13^ 

The Lotos Eaters. 

" This rriountain wave will roll us shoreward soon " 135 

" The charmed sunset linger'd low adown 

In the red West : thro' mountain clefts the dale " 136 

A Dream of Fair Women. 

" Crisp foam-flakes scud along the level sand " . . . . , 142 

" A queen with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes" 145 

" T died a Queen. The Roman soldier found 

Me lying dead, my crown about my brows " 146 

" All night the splinter'd crags that wall the dell 

With spires of silver shine " 147 

" Saw God divide the night with flying flame, 

And thunder on the everlasting hills " 149 

Joan of Arc 150 

The Blackbird. 

" Blackbird, sing me something well " 153 

The Goose. 

" The goose flew this way and flew that. 

And filled the house with clamor " 155 

POEMS AND SONGS. (Published A. D. 1833.) 

Ornamental Title 169 

To -^ . 

" And when the sappy field and wood" 176 

Kate. 

Illustrated Heading 177 

Sonnet, xi. 

Buonaparte 184 

ENGLISH IDYLS AND OTHER POEMS. (Published A. D. 1842.) 

Ornamental Title 185 

Morte D'Arthur. 

' ' An arm 

Rose up from out the bosom of the lake ". ,. » 189 

" But when I looked again, behold an arm 

Cloth'd in white samite, mystic, wonderful " 192 

" But she that rose the tallest of them all 

And fairest, laid his head upon her lap. 

And call'd him by his name " 194 

THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER ; or, The Pictures. 
" He cried, * Look! look! ' Before he ceased I turn'd 

And, ere a star can wink, beheld her there " 200 

" Ah, one rose. 

One rose, but one, by those lair fingers cull'd " 201 

Dora. 

' ' I will not marry Dora " , ; 205 

" Then they clung about 
The old man's neck, and kiss'd him many times " - - . 209 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xi. 



Edwin Morris; or, the Lake. 

" I was a sketcher then : 
See here, mj doing: curves of mountain, bridge. 
Boat, island, ruins of a castle " 216 

" And now we left 
The clerk behind us, I and he, and ran 

By ripplj shallows of the lisping lake " 217 

" The prime swallow dips his Aving " 220 

The Talking Oak. 

The maiden in her teens, 229 

' ' O jes, she wandered round and round 

These knotted knees of mine " 232 

" I see the moulder'd Abbej-walls " 233 

" As when I see the woodman lift 

His axe to slay my kin " 235 

The Golden Year. 

" Fly, happy, happy sails " 241 

High above I heard them blast 
The steep slate quarrv, and the great echo flap 
And buffet round the hills from bluff to bluff" 242 

Ulysses. 

" There lies the port ; the vessel puffs her sail " : 244 

Locksley Hall. 

" My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me " 247- 

" And our spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips " 248 

" Nature brings thee solace ; for a tender voice will cry " 250 

GODIVA. 

" Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there 

Unclasp'd the wedded eagles of her belt " 256 

The Day- Dream. 

" My beard has grown into my lap " , 277 

Amphion. 

, " Young ashes pirouetted down, 

Coquetting with young beeches " 281 

To E. L., on his Travels in Greece. 

" For me the torrent ever pour'd " ., 290^ 

Lady Clare. 

Illustrated Heading ,0 292 

" It was the time when lilies blow " , „ 293 

" The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought 

Leapt up from where she lay "... c 294 

Sir Galahad. 

" Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth. 

The silver vessels sparkle clean " • „ , ... 297 

St. Agnes' Eve. 

" Deep on the convent roof the snows 

Are sparkling to the moon " 299 

The Poets' Song. 

" And the nightingale thought, ' I have sung many songs ' " 304 

Edward Gray. 
" Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me: 
Bitterly weeping I turn'd.away "... 305 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



The Eagle. 

"He clasps the crag with hooked hands '' 308 

The Beggar Maid. 

" Barefooted came the beggar maid 

Before the King Cophetua " 309 

A Farewell. 

" Flow, softly, flow by lawn and lea, 

A rivulet, then a river " 310 

" Break, break, break, 

On thy cold gray stones, O sea!' 318 

THE PRINCESS : A MEDLEY. (PubHshed A. D. 1847.) 

Illustrated Heading 319 

And echo, like a ghostly woodpecker. 326 

" High-arch'd and ivy-claspt, 

Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire " 32S 

" Thro' the wild woods that hung about the town " 336 

" And all about us peal'd the nightingale " 332 

" A boat 

Tacks, and the slacken'd sail flaps " 337 

*' The creature laid his muzzle on your lap " 340 

" The splendor falls on castle walls 

And snoM'y summits old in story " 354 

" There sinks the nebulous star we call the sun " 355 

" Home they brought her wai-rior dead " 382 

'' Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height " 397 

" A bird 
That early woke to feed her little ones " 400. 

" The walls 
Blacken'd about us, bats wheel'd, and owls whoop'd " .^ 404 

IN MEMORIAM. (Published A. D. 1850.) 

Illustrated Heading „ ,.„.... 405 

" There twice a day the Severn fills ; 

The salt sea water passes by, 

And hushes half the babbling Wye, 

And makes a silence in the hills 420 

*' And one is sad; her note is changed, 

Because her brood is stol'n away " 424 

" But I should turn mine ears and hear 

The moanings of the homeless sea " 430 

*' Or seal'd within the iron hills " . 440 

*' Beside the river's wooded reach " 450 

" Ere these have clothed their branchy bowers " 456 

*' The primrose of the later year " 463 

And thou, with all thy breadth and height 

Of foliage, towering sycamore " 465 

"And the trees 

Laid their dark arms about the field " 472 

" On yon swollen brook that bubbles fast " , 475 

" Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky. 

Ring out the old, ring in the new " 481 

"And milkier every milky sail 

On winding stream or distant sea " 488 

" Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night. 

By thee the world's great work is heard " 492 

" I hear thee where the waters run ; 

Thou standest in the rising sun, 

And in the setting thou art fair " 497 



LTST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



" Her sweet ' I will,' has made ye one " , 500 

ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. (Published in 
1852.) 

The Duke of Wellington, 504 

'"Till o'er the hills her eagles flew " , 507 

MAUD AND OTHER POEMS. (Published A. D. 1855.) 

Ornamental Title 513 

■' The dark old place will be gilt bj the touch of a millionaire ".. o..,. . 517 

'• Morning arises stormy and pale, 

And the budded peaks of the wood are bow'd " . , , . . = 521 

" Birds in our woods sang 

Ringing thro' the valleys "....„.. , „....<,...... o c . . . 528 

" The rivulet on from the lawn 

Running down to my own dark wood " o.o,.... » . . - =..... » 531 

" The woodbine spices are wafted abroad, 

And the musk of the roses blown " o... o. .,,...... ...o.. > .. . , .. o . , 540 

"In the garden by the turrets 

Of the old manorial hall ".. _, ..,......,..„ _...., „. », 548 

The Brook. (An Idyl.) 

" Here, by this brook, we parted ". » . . , . » » » ., 554 

" I come from haunts of coot and hern " ,....<,. ..,0. ..... . ; . . . . . . . . 555 

" I chatter over stony ways " ^ ...o .<,..... 556 

" In copse and fern 

Twinkled the innumerable ear and tail " «• 559 

" Not by the well-known stream and rustic spire, 

But unfamiliar Arno, and the dome ".„........,„..» o 560 

"We bought the farm we tenanted before ".. . ...... o..., .,.,... 561 

The Daisy. 

" A moulder'd citadel on the coast, 

Or tower, or high hill-convent "...,.... ...» ..,.,...., o . .c ......., = 562 

" A thousand shadowy-pencil'd valleys " ...,,...,. o . . 564 

To THE Rev. F. D. Maurice. 

" Pay one visit here " „ , o .. . . «. ^o., «^« 567 

The Charge of the Light Brigade. 

The Charge of the Light Brigade ,. ,. ,. . . ». . » . 568 

" Storm'd at with shot and shell. 

While horse and hero fell " „ o , . . o .. . . . 569 

The Letters. 

" She took the little ivory chest. 

With half a sigh she turn'd the key, 
Then raised her head with lips comprest, 

And gave my letters back to me " - 575 

" Low breezes fann'd the belfry bars " . , ........... 576 

ENOCH ARDEN. (Published A. D. 1864.) 

Illustrated Heading 577 

" Fresh from the burial of her little one. 
Cared not to look on any human face, 

But turn'd her own toward the wall and wept". o =. . . ., . 586 

" * Let me rest,' she said : 

■ So Philip rested with her well content " 589 

" The ship Good Fortune, tho' at setting forth 

The Biscay, roughly riding eastward, shook " 593 

*' Thus over Enoch's early-silvering head 

The sunny and rainy seasons came and went 

Year after year " . . .^ , <. 590 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



" Then Enoch, rolling his gray eyes upon her, 

' Did you know Enoch Arden, of this town? ' " 602 

"So past the strong heroic soul away " 604 

OCCASIONAL POEMS AND SONGS. 

Ornamental Title 605 

Aylmer's Field. 

" And might not Averill, had he willed it so. 

Somewhere beneath his own low range of roofs " , 608 

" A summer burial deep in hollyhock; 

Each, its own charm; and Edith's everywhere " 611 

" Fetch'd his richest beeswing from a binn reserv'd " , , 617 

" Never since our bad earth became one sea " ,. = ... , 623 

Sea Dreams. 

" A wreck, a wreck !" , ...... c <, = . 630 

" And near the light a giant woman sat, 

A pickaxe in her hand " c^ „ . . c = 632 

The Voyage. 

' ' We past long lines of Northern capes " , 645 

Lucretius. 

" The bird makes his heart voice amid the blaze of flowers " 649 

The Captain. 

" Crashing went the boom, 
Spars were splintered, decks were shattered " , c ..... . 660 

The Islet. 

" A mountain islet pointed and peak'd "... 663 

Sung at the Opening of the International Exhibition. 

' 'And crown'd with flowers " • ........ 670 

The Third of February, 1852. 

" Better the waste Atlantic roU'd " 672. 

A Welcome to Alexandra. 

" Roll as a ground-swell dash'd on the strand " = . . . . 678 

" Break, happy land, into earlier flowers, 

Make music, O bird, in the new-budded bowers " ...o ........... . 679 

Boadicea. 

" While I roved about the forest, long and bitter h' meditating " <>....= 684 

In Quantity. 

" Like the skater on ice that hardly bears him "..... » 00 » 687 

Specimen of a Translation of the Iliad in Blank Verse. 
'* As when in heaven the stars about the moon 
Look beautiful" . . , . . 688 

THE WINDOW; OR, THE SONGS OF THE WRENS. 

Illustrated Heading i, ....... . 691 

" Rose, rose and clematis, 

Drop me a flower to kiss " 694 

"We'll be birds of a feather " 696 

*' Be merry, all birds, to-day " 697 

" Be merry in heaven, O larks " 698 

" O the woods and the meadows " , 7°° 

DESPAIR. (Published A. D. 1S81.) 

Illustrated Heading „ .,, 701 










mm'" 



TO Tp QUEEl] ; 










TO THE QUEEN. 





EVERED, beloved— O you that hold 
A nobler office upon earth 
Than arms, or power of brain, or birth 
Could give the w^arrior kings of old. 

Victoria, since your Royal grace 
To one of less desert allows 
This laurel greener from the brows 

Of him that utter'd nothing base; 

And should your greatness, and the care 
That yokes with empire, yield 3'ou time 
To make demand of modern rhyme 

If aught of ancient worth be there; 

Then, while a sweeter music wakes, 

And thro' wild March the throstle calls, 
Where all about your palace- walls 

The sun-lit almond-blossom shakes — 

Take, Madam, this poor book of song; 

For tho' the faults were thick as dust 

In vacant chambers, I could trust 
Your kindness. Ma}^ you rule us long, 

And leave us rulers of your blood 



As noble till the latest d 



ay, 



May children of our children say, 
She wrought her people lasting good; 



TO THE QUEEN. 



March, 1851 



" Her court was pure; her life serene; 

God gave her peace; her land reposed; 

A thousand claims to reverence closed 
In her as ^lother, Wife, and Queen; 

"And statesmen at her council met 

Wlio knew the seasons, when to take 
Occasion by the hand, and make 
The bounds of freedom wider yet 

" Bv shaping some august decree, 

Which kept her throne unshaken still, 
■ Broad based upon the people's will, 
And compassed by the inviolate sea." 







ETPclSI f^l f^I^l^ f^i^lSl [^JMSI f^ "^IMl^l 

5iMi^ EiMimJ siMf^ [Ml EiMim 















H^^^^^5S>i^5^^^^^^J^_»»_Mi^_M.f_MiftM.^ 



A ^:^^ l^:s3A% 




♦' But the solmn oak-tree sigheth." 



CLARIBEL. 



CLARIBEL. 




A MELODY. 



HERE Claribel low-lieth 
The breezes pause and die, 

Letting the rose leaves fall: 
But the solemn oak-tree sigheth, 

Thick-leaved, ambrosial, 
With an ancient melody 
Of an inw^ard agony, 
Where Claribel low-lieth. 



II. 



At eve the beetle boometh 

Athwart the thicket lone: 
At noon the wild bee hummeth 

About the moss'd headstone: 
At midnight the moon cometh. 

And looketh down alone. 
Her song the lintwhite swelleth, 
The clear-voiced mavis dwelleth, 

The callow throstle lispeth, 
The slumberous wave outwelleth, 

The babbling runnel crispeth, 
The hollow grot replieth 

Where Claribel low-lieth. 




V\^ 



6 



NOTHING WILL DIE. 




NOTHING WILL DIE, 



HEN will the streams be aweary of flowing 
Under my eye? 
When will the wind be aweary of blowing 
Over the sky ? 
When will the clouds be aweary of fleeting? 
When will the heart be aweary of beating? 
And nature die? 
Never! oh! never! nothing will die. 
The stream flows, 
The wind blows, 
The cloud fleets, 
The heart beats. 
Nothing will die. 
Nothing will die; 
All things will change 
Through eternity. 
'Tis the world's winter; 
Autumn and summer 
Are gone long ago; 
Earth is dry to the center, 
But spring, a new comer, 
A spring rich and strange, 
Shall make the winds blow 
Round and round. 
Thro' and thro'. 
Here and there. 
Till the air 
And the ground 
Shall be fill'd with life anew. 



The world was never made; 

It will change, but it will not fade. 

So let the wind range; 

For even and morn 

Ever will be 

Thro' eternity. 
Nothing was born ; 
Nothing will die ; 
All things will change. 



ALL THINGS WILL DIE. 



ALL THINGS WILL DIE. 




LEARLY the blue riv^er chimes in its flowing 
Under my eye; 
Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing 

Over the sky. 
One after another the white clouds are fleeting; 
Every heart this May morning in joyance is beating 
Full merrily; 
Yet all things must die. 
The stream will cease to flow; 
The wind will cease to blow; 
The clouds will cease to fleet: 
The heart will cease to beat; 
For all things must die. 



All things must die. 
Spring will come never more. 

Oh! vanity! 
Death waits at the door. 
See! our friends are all forsaking 
The wine and merrymaking. 
We are called — we must go. 
Laid low, very low, 
In the dark we must lie. 
The merr}^ glees are still; 
The voice of the bird 
Shall no more be heard, 
Nor the wind on the hill. 

Oh! misery! 
Hark! death is calling 
While I speak to ye. 
The jaw is falling. 
The red cheek paling. 
The strong limbs failing; 
Ice with the warm blood mixing; 
The eyeballs fixing. 
Nine times goes the passing belh 
Ye merry souls, farewell. 



THE KRAKEN. 



The old earth 

Had a birth, 

As all men know, 

Long ago. 

And the old earth must die. 
So let the warm winds range. 
And the blue wave beat the shore: 
For even and morn 
Ye will never see 
Thro' eternity. 
All things were born. 
Ye will come never more, 
For all things must die. 



^^ Jfe gr^ ^ (g) 



THE KRAKEN, 




i|ELOW the thunders of the upper deep; 
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea. 
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep 
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee 
About his shadowy sides: above him swell 
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height; 
And far away into the sickly light. 
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell 
Unrmmbered and enormous polypi 
Winnow with giant fans the slumbering green. 
There hath he lain for ages and will lie 
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep. 
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep; 
Then once by man and angels to be seen, 
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die. 




LILIAN. 



LILIAN. 




LILIAN. 



IRY, fairy Lilian, 

Flitting, fairy Lilian, 
When I ask her if she love me, 
Clasps her tiny hands above me, 
,pOi Laughing all she can; 

She'll not tell me if she love me, 
Cruel little Lilian. 



When my passion seeks 
Pleasance in love-sighs, 
She, looking thro' and thro' me 
Thoroughly to undo me, 

Smiling, never speaks: 
Till the lightning laughters dimple 
So innocent-arch, so cunning-simple. 
From beneath her gather'd wimple 
Glancing with black-beaded eyes. 
The baby-roses in her cheeks ; 
Then away she flies. 



III. 

Prythee weep, May Lilian! 
Gayety without eclipse 

Wearieth me, Maj' Lilian: 
Thro' my very heart it thrilleth 

When from crimson-threaded lips 
Silver-treble laughter trilleth 

Prythee weep, May Lilian. 



IV. 

Praying all I can. 
If prayers will not hush thee, 

Airy Lilian, 
Like a rose-leaf I will crush thee, 

Fairy Lilian. 



10 



ISABEL. 




ISABEL, 



YES not down-dropped nor over-bright, but fed 
With the clear-pointed flame of chastity, 
Clear, without heat, undying, tended by 

Pure vestal thoughts in the translucent fane 
Of her still spirit; locks not wide dispread. 
Madonna-wise on either side her head; 
Sweet lips, whereon perpetually did reign 
The summer calm of golden charity. 
Were fixed shadows of thy fixed mood, 

Revered Isabel, the crown and head, 
The stately flower of female fortitude. 

Of perfect wifehood, and pure lowlihead. 



II. 

The intuitive decision of a bright 

And thorough-edged intellect to part 

Error from crime; a prudence to withhold; 

The laws of marriage character'd in gold 
Upon the blanched tablets of her heart; 
A love still burning upward, giving light 
To read those laws; an accent very low 
In blandishment, but a most silver flow 

Of subtle-paced counsel in distress. 
Right to the heart and brain, tho' undescried. 

Winning its way with extreme gentleness 
Thro' all the outworks of suspicious pride; 
A courage to endure and to obey; 
A hate of gossip parlance, and of sway, 
Crown'd Isabel, thro' all her placid life. 
The queen of marriage, a most perfect wife. 



III. 



The mellowed reflex of a winter moon ; 
A clear stream flowing with a muddy one. 
Till in its onward current it absorbs 

With swifter movement and in purer light 



MARIANA. 



11 



The vexed eddies of its wayward brother: 
A leaning and upbearing parasite, 

Clothing the stem, which else had fallen quite 
With cluster'd flower-bells and ambrosial orbs 
Of rich fruit-bunches leaning on each other — 
Shadow forth thee: — the world hath not another 
(Tho' all her fairest forms are types of thee, 
And thou of God in thy great charity) 
Of such a finish'd, chasten'd purity. 




MARIANA. 

Mariana in the moated grange." — Measure for Measure. 



ITH blackest moss the flower-plots 

Were thickly crusted, one and all: 
The rusted nails fell from the knots 

That held the peach to the gable wall. 
The broken sheds looked sad and strange; 

Unlifted was the clinking latch; 

Weeded and worn the ancient thatch 
Upon the lonely moated grange. 

She only said, "My life is drear}', 

He cometh not," she said; 
She said, " I am aweary, aweary, 

I would that I were dead !" 

: tears fell with the dews at even ; 
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried; 
She could not look on the sweet heaven, 

Either at morn or eventide. 
After the flitting of the bats, 

When thickest dark did trance the sky. 
She drew her casement curtain by, 
And glanced athwart the glooming flats. 
She only said, " The night is dreary, 

He cometh not," she said; 
She said, " I am aweary, a wear}', 
I would that I were dead !" 



12 MAIi/AJVA. 



Upon the middle of tlie night, 

Waking she heard the night-fowl crow ; 
The cock sung out an hour ere light: 

From the dark fen the oxen's low 
Came to her: without hope of change, 
In sleep she seemed to vv^alk forlorn, 
Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn 
About the lonely moated grange. 

She only said, " The day is dreary, 

He Cometh not," she said; 
She said, " I am awear_v, awear}-- 
I would that I were dead!" 

About a stone-cast from the wall 

A sluice with blacken'd "waters slept, 
And o'er it many, round and small. 

The cluster'd marish-mosses crept. 
Hard by a poplar shook alway, 

All silver-green with gnarled bark: 
For leagues no other tree did mark 
The level waste, the rounding gray. 
She only said, " My life is dreary, 

He cometh not," she said ; 
She said, " I am aweary, aweary, 
I would that I were dead !" 

And ever when the moon w^as low, 

And the shrill winds were up and away, 
In the white curtain, to and fro, 

She saw the gusty shadow swa}-. 
But when the moon was very low, 

And wild winds bound within their cell, 
The shadow of the poplar fell 
Upon her bed, across her brow. 

She only said, " The night is dreary, 

He cometh not," she said; 
She said, " I am aweary, aweary, 
I would that I w^ere dead !" 



All day within the dreamy house. 

The doors upon their hinges creak'd; 

The blue flv sung in the pane; the mouse 
Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd, 



MAIilAJVA. 



13 



Or from the crevice peer'd about. 

Old faces glimmered through the doors, 
Old footsteps trod the upper floors, 
Old voices called her from without. 

She only said, " My life is dreary, 

He cometh not," she said; 
She said, " I am awearj^, aw^eary, 
I would that I were dead !" 

The sparrow's chirrup on the roof, 

The slow clock ticking, and the sound 
Which to the wooing wind aloof 

The poplar made, did all confound 
Her sense; but most she loathed the hour 
When the thick- moated sunbeam lay 
Athwart the chambers, and the day 
Was sloping toward his western bower. 
Then, said she, " I am very dreary. 

He will not come," she said; 
She wept, " I am aweary, aweary, 
O God, that I were dead !" 




14 



TO 



TO 




LEAR-HEADED friend, whose joyful scorn, 
Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwain 
The knots that tangle human creeds, 
The wounding cords that bind and strain 
The heart until it bleeds, 
Ray-fringed eyelids of the morn 

Roof not a glance so keen as thine: 
If aught of prophec}^ be mine, 
Thou wilt not live in vain. 



Low-cowering shall the Sophist sit; 

Falsehood shall bare her plaited brow: 

Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not now 
With shrilling shafts of subtle wit. 
Nor martyr flames, nor trenchant swords 

Can do away that ancient lie; 

A gentler death shall Falsehood die. 
Shot thro' and thro' with cunning words. 



III. 

Weak Truth a-leaning on her crutch. 

Wan, wasted Truth in her utmost need, 
Thy kingl}^ intellect shall feed. 
Until she be an athlete bold. 

And weary with a finger's touch 

Those writhed limbs of lightning speed; 

Like that strange angel which of old. 
Until the breaking of the light, 

Wrestled with wandering Israel, 

Fast Yabbok brook the livelong night, 

And heaven's mazed signs stood still 
In the dim tract of Fenuel. 




MADELINE. 



15 



MADELIXE. 




HOU art not steep'd in golden languors, 
No tranced summer calm is thine, 
Ever varying Madeline. 
Thro' light and shadow thou dost range, 
Sudden glances, swxet and strange, 

Delicious spites and darling angers, 
And airy forms of flitting change. 



II. 



Smiling, frowning, evermore, 
Thou art perfect in love-lore. 
Revealings deep and clear are thine 
Of wealthy smiles: but who mnv know 
Whether smile or frown be fleeter? 
Whether smile or frown be sweeter. 

Who may know? 
Frowns perfect-sweet along the brow 
Light-looming over eyes divine, 
Like little clouds sun-fringed, are thine, 
Ever varying Madeline. 
Thy smile and frov^m are not aloof 
From one another. 
Each to each Is dearest brother; 
Hues of the silken sheeny w^oof 
Momently shot into each other. 
All the mystery is thine; 
Smiling, frowning, evermore, 
Thou art perfect in love-lore, 
Ever varvinsf Madeline. 



III. 



A subtle, sudden flame, 

Bv veering passion lann'd. 

About thee breaks and dances: 
When I v/ould kiss thv hand, 

The flush of angrer'd shame 



16 



IVB ARE FREE. 



O'erflows thy calmer glances, 
iVnd o'er black brows drops down 
A sudden-curved frown: 
But wheji I turn aw^ay, 
Thou, willing me to stay, 

Wooest not, nor vainly wranglest; 

But, looking fixedly the while. 
All my bounding heart entanglest 

In a golden-netted smile; 
Then in madness and in bliss. 
If my lips should dare to kiss 
Thy taper fingers amorously, 
Again thou blushest angrily ; 
And o'er black brows drops down 
A sudden-curved frown. 



WE ARE FREE. 



Ip-HE winds, as at their hour of birth, 
.,^^J'<f Leaning upon the ridged sea, 
^ISPi^^Breathed low around the rolling earth 
bio' With mellow prelude, " We are free.' 



The streams through many a lilied row, 
Down-carolling to the crisped sea, 

Low-tinkled with a bell-like flow 

Atween the blossom, " We are free.' 




SONG.— THE OWL. 



17 




SONG.— THE OWL. 



HEN cats rua home and light is come, 
And dew is cold upon the ground, 
And the far-off stream is dumb. 
And the whirring sail goes round. 
And the whirring sail goes round; 
Alone and warming his five wits. 
The white owl in the belfry sits. 

II. 

When merry milkmaids click the latch. 

And rarely smells the new- mown hay. 
And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch 
Twice or thrice his roundelay. 
Twice or thrice his roundelay; 

Alone and warming his five wits. 
The white owl in the belfry sits. 



SECOND SONG. 



TO THE SAME. 




"''^'^HY tuwhits are lull'd I wot, 
||>- Thy tuwhoos of yesternight. 
Which upon the dark afloat, 
So took echo with delight, 
So took echo with delight. 

That her voice untuneful grown. 
Wears all day a fainter tone. 

II. 

I would mock thy chaunt anew 

But I cannot mimic it; 
Not a whit of thy tuwhoo. 
Thee to woo to thy tuwhit, 
Thee to woo to thy tuwhit, 

W^ith alengthen'd loud halloo, " 
Tuwhoo, tuwhit, tuwhit, tuwhoo-o-o. 



18 



RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 



'<xf '^ '<^' "^' '^ ■<;' 
















ia^^^iiu^^*,^?M^-iiMi 1 1.1 ..1.1. , • 



^■i^\t-h/Ng ^ 




HEN the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free 

III the silken sail of infancy, 
The tide of time flowed back with me, 

The forward-flowing tide of time; 
iVnd many a sheeny summer morn, 
Adown the Tigris I was borne. 
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold, 
High-walled gardens green and old; 
True Mussulman was I and sworn, 

For it was in the golden prime 
Of oood Haroun Alraschid. 



Anight my shallop, rustling thro' 
The low and bloomed foliage, drove 
The fragrant, glistening deeps, and clove 
The citron-shadows in the blue: 
By garden porches on the brim, 
The costly doors flung open wide. 
Gold glittering thro' lamplight dim. 
And broider'd sofas on each side: 
In sooth it was a goodly time, 
For it vs^as in the golden piime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 



Often, where clear-stemm'd platans guard 

The outlet, did I turn away 

The boat-head down a broad canal 




'Anight my shallop, rustling thro, 
The low and bloomed foliage." 



RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 



19 



From the main river sluiced, where all 
The sloping of the moon-lit sward 
Was damask-work and deep inlay 
Of braided blooms unmown, which crept 
Adown to where the water slept. 
A goodly place, a goodly time, 
For it was in the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 




A motion from the river won 
Ridged the smooth level, bearing on 
My shallop thro' the star-strown calm. 
Until another night in night 
I enter'd, from the clearer light, 
Imbowered vaults of pillar'd palm, 
Imprisoning sweets, which as they clomb 
Heavenward, were stay'd beneath the dome 
Of hollow boughs. — A goodly time. 
For it was in the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 



20 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 

Still onward; and the clear canal 
Is rounded to as clear a lake. 
From the green rivage many a fall 
Of diamond rillets musical, 
Thro' little crystal arches low 
Down from the central fountain's flow 
Fall'n silver-chiming, seem'd to shake 
The sparkling flints beneath the prow. 
A goodly place, a goodly time. 
For it was in the golden 2:)rime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

Above thro' many a bo^very turn 
A walk with vary-color'd shells 
Wander'd engrain'd. On either side 
All round about the fragrant marge 
From fluted vase and brazen urn 
In order, eastern flowers large. 
Some dropping low their ciimson bells 
Half-closed, and others studded wide 
With disks and tiars, fed the time 
With odor in the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

Far off", and where the lemon-grove 
In closest coverture upsprung, 
The living airs of middle night 
Died round the bulbul as he sung ; 
Not he : but something which possessed 
The darkness of the world, delight, 
Life, anguish, death, immortal love, 
Ceasing not, mingled, unrepress'd, 
Apart from place, withholding time. 
But flattering the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

Black the garden-bowers and grots 

Slumber'd: the solemn palms were ranged 

Above, unwoo'd of summer wind: 

A sudden splendor from behind 

Flush'd all the leaves with rich gold-green, 

And, flowing rapidly between 

Their interspaces, counterchanged 

The level lake with diamond-plots 



RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 21 



Of dark and bright. A lovely time, 
For it was in the golden prime 
Of good Haroiin Alraschid. 

Dark-blue the deep sphere overhead, 
Distinct with vidd stars inlaid, 
Grew darker from that under-flame: 
So, leaping lightly from the boat, 
With silver anchor left afloat, 
In marvel v/hence that glory came 
Upon me, as in sleep I sank 
In cool soft turf upon the bank. 

Entranced with that place and time, 
So worthy of the golden prime 
Of ofood Haroun Alraschid. 



Thence thro' the garden I was drawn — • 
A realm of pleasance, many a mound, 
And many a shadow-chequer'd lawn 
Full of the city's stilly sound. 
And deep myrrh-thickets blowing round 
The stately cedar, tamarisks. 
Thick rosaries of scented thorn. 
Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks 

Graven with emblems of the time. 
In honor of the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

With dazed vision unawares 
From the long alley's latticed shade 
Emerged, I came upon the great 
Pavilion of the Caliphat. 
Right to the carven cedarn doors, 
Flung inward over spangled floors, . 
Broad-based flights of marble stairs 
Ran up with golden balustrade. 
After the fashion of the time, 
And humor of the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

The fourscore windows all alight 
As with the quintessence of flame, 
A million tapers flaring bright 



22 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 

From twisted silvers look'd to sliame 
The iiollovz-vaulted dark, and strean/i'd 
Upon the mooned domes aloof 
In inmost Bagdat, till there seemVl 
Hundreds of crescents on the roof 

Of night new-risen, that marvelous time, 
To celebrate the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

Then stole I up, and trancedly 
Gazed on the Persian girl alone, 
Serene, with argent-lidded eyes 
Amorous, and lashes like to rays 
Of darkness, and a brow of pearl 
Tressed with redolent ebonyc. 
In many a dark delicious curl, 

Flowing beneath her rose-hued zone; 
The sweetest lady of the time. 
Well worthy of the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

Six columns, three on either side. 
Pure silver, underpropt a rich 
Throne of the massive ore, from which 
Down-drooped, in many a floating fold, 
Engarlanded and diaper'd 
With inwrought flowers, a cloth of gold. 
Thereon, his deep eye laughter-stirred 
With merriment of kingly pride. 
Sole star of ail that place and time, 
I saw him — In his golden prime. 
The Good Haroun Alraschid. 




Then stole I up, and trancedly 
Gazed on the Persian girl alone." 



ODE TO MEM CRT. 



23 



ODE 7 MEM OR r. 



ADDRESSED TO 




HOU who stealest fire 

From the fountains of the past, 

To glorify the present; oh, haste 

Visit my low desire! 

Strengthen me, enlighten me ! 

I faint in this obscurity. 

Thou dewy dawn of memory. 



II. 



Come not as thou camest of late, 
Flinging the gloom of yesternight 
On the white day; but robed in softened light 

Of orient state. 
Whilome thou camest with the morning mist, 

Even as a maid, whose stately brow 
The dew-impearPd winds of dawn have kiss'd, 
When, she, as thou. 
Stays on her floating locks the lovely freight 
Of overflowing blooms and earliest shoots 
Of orient green, giving safe pledge of fruits. 
Which in wantertide shall star 
The black earth with brilliance rare. 



III. 



Whilome thou camest with the morning mist. 

And with the evening cloud, 
Showering thy gleaned wealth into mj^ open breast 
(Those peerless flowers which in the rudest wind 

Never grow sere. 
When rooted in the garden of the mind. 
Because they are the earliest of the year). 

Nor was the night thy shroud. 
In sweet dreams softer than unbroken rest 
Thou leddest by the hand thine infant Hope. 



24 • ODE TO MEMORY. 



The eddying of her garments caught from thee 
The hght of thy great presence; and the cope 

Of the half-attain'd futurity, 

Though deep not fathomless, 
Was cloven with the million stars which tremble 
O'er the deep mind of dauntless infancy. 
Small thought was there of life's distress; 
For sure she deem'd no mist of earth could dull 
Those spirit-thrilling eyes so keen and beautiful; 
Sure she was nigher to heaven's spheres, 
Listening the lordly music flowing from 
The illimitable years. 

streno-then me, enlisfhten me! 

1 faint in this obscurity, 
Thou dewy dawn of memory. 



IV. 

Come forth I charge thee, arise. 

Thou of the many tongues, the myriad eyes! 

•Thou comest not with shows of flaunting vines 
Unto mine inner eye, 
Divinest Memory! 

Thou ^vert not nursed by the waterfall 
Which ever sounds and shines 

A pillar of white light upon the wall 
Of purple cliffs, aloof descried: 
Come from the woods that belt the gray hill-side, 
The seven elms, the poplars four 
That stand beside mv f^ither's door, 



iMf0^--::;im^-0-.^^^ 


Bl'^li 




^^te^^^^^^^p'''^^'^^^ 


i^^ft^P 


^^^WM^^i"^ 










P^ig^S^S^MiC^!^»Ssfegjj8pfT 


^^^,-::^-iy^-i'-; 'h^.y-^^- 




ig^^^gj^B^^'s^SI^'^^^m 


^n/£S?%jr;-i?;«ieS 




^ ^^^^^^^^E^SlJEIi^JE)^^3! 




^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^S 


i^^^^^^^^^S 




^^^^^^^^^^^^^f^MJ^^^^^^Y^y^^T^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 


• #'^!^'^'^U'^^^^^^&?? 




^^^^^^jggi4.i^t^^^^fe^^^^^^^^^^^^^^fc^^^BH 


': ■ v^i^t^^^fc 






- ■:?ciii&^;A^^?!^--^;-i^ 




^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Sm 


^^^^s 


^^H 


^^a^^^^^S^^^^^'^^^^^l^^^^^^fr^^^^^^MBI 


^K^m^^^^M^^^^ 




^^^B^SL^^-r:^=Sj^^SiJst^ixf &n^?^ -l.?l^S3^^B"'=^^^^^^S^ ^^~^^^^*l^3B^Hl 


.:^*7 r?^*^si>:^.^'5*s:¥^^ 


^W^^^^v^ 


^^^^^^^^^^^^^Kj-^^^^ 


^^^M 


^^P 


-^'E^^^F-^^^^^^^^^^^^'^Tr-:"- ^ lT-t5??^^^i 




^Sll 


^^p^^s 


^--^s^^^H 


^C-" 


■K — ""^fe 


^ — ~:^^^ — ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^iW^B 


[|KB^^3^^y..Ji SB 


w "^-^ 


WM^KHr^W ^^^^-^^^^^^^^^^^si 


I^^Ki 


^^^ 


^^^^v^^^^"^^^^^^ ^y^^^te^^^^^m^^^^p 


s^^^^^^P"^^ 


^^^^^^H 


T^^^i?^^: ^-""-fe^^^P^fW^Hl 


|j|r^%"^yf^p 


f rfJ-^^B 


^^6^&^^^^^^^S-^ "''^^'^S^M 


m^S'A 


^^^^^ 


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^gjtj^^^^^^^^'^'^^-^ .^i^^fet^g^^^^sii 


^^^^^^ 


^^^^^^^^^fci'"^-^ 1 


Wt^^^m 


^^^M 


^^^^^^^Kfer ""^ ^^^^^^fi^ i^^^^^^^fer '^ 


lSSIh "~^^3SPT>^^a^afa 


SjS^B^aBmaBfegZr 


^3- r^^^gj^^^^^^&i.,^j^jj^^^S^^^^^^^^E^^<5=-= ((^ 


^^fcT '^'^.^Z^ 


^^^^^R 


f^^^Ui^^ ^^5fc^^^^^^^^-^^'^'^^^^^^^^^^S^^™^3H^^!M 


HB^^^^^' ^^"^ 


^^^^^'^^-^ 




BB^^^^^^/^^ 


Ho^^^fe 


g^^^^raM^^^^^^l^C^^^^^-^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 


^^^^^^p 


^^^fe 




^^^^^^^^^^^fei 


^^^^I^^P^ 




^^^^^^^^^ 


^^^^^M 




■^j^ggHSH^SBM^SqwSB^atg^Be 


S^^^^^Scw^Ha^^^ 




/^^^**vi'ii'' ■ .Ov"*' '^v" " r'" ^lii ~ii''' '1 ' 


^^H 






'1^^^?^-'^'^^ 


pii^^^Kiiisfflil-- ;;^ 




ii 


--^-'- '^- ': ~i" ^ 






M 




'^^z 


1 ^^^^^^^ff^^^''%-^--^^"^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^-^ 


i=»l?is^ 


J:^' 


^^^:^-^2^^ 


%im 



" Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat 

Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds." 



ODE TO MEMORY. 25 



And chiefly from the brook that loves 
To purl o'er matted cress and ribbed sand, 
Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves, 
Drawing into his narrow earthen urn, 

In every elbow and turn. 
The filter'd tribute of the rough woodland. 

O! hither lead thy feet! 
Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat 
Of the thicii-fleeced sheep from wattled folds. 

Upon the ridged w^olds, 
When the first matin-song hath waken'd loud 
Over the dark dewy earth forlorn, 
What time the amber morn 
Forth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud. 



V. 



Large dowries doth the raptured eye 
To the young spirit present 
When first she is \ved ; 

And like a bride of old 
In triumph led. 

With music and sweet showers 
Of festal flowers. 
Unto the dwelling she must sway. 
Well hast thou done, great artist Memory, 
In setting round th}' first experiment 

With royal frame-work of wrought gold; 
Needs must thou dearly love thy first essay. 
And foremost in thy various gallery 
Place it, where sweetest sunlight falls 
Upon the storied w^alls; 
For the discovery 
And newness of thine art so pleased thee, 
That all which thou hast drawn of fairest 

Or boldest since, but lightly weighs 
With thee unto the love thou bearest 
The first-born of thy genius. Artist-like, 
Ever retiring thou dost gaze 
On the prime labor of thine early days: 
No matter what the sketch might be; 
Whether the high field on the bushless Pike, 
Or even a sand-built ridge 
Of heaped hills that mound the sea. 
Overblown with murmurs harsh, 



26 



ODE TO MEMORY 



Or even a lowly cottage whence we see 

Stretch'd wide and wild the waste enormous marsh, 

Where from the frequent bridge, 

Like emblems of infinity, 

The trenched waters run from sk}- to sky; 

Or a garden bower'd close 

With plaited alleys of the trailing rose, 

Long alleys falling dovvn to twilight grots, 

Or opening upon level plots 

Of crowned lilies, standing near 

Purple-spiked lavender: 

Whither in after life retired 

From brawling storms, 

From weary wind, 

With youthful fancy reinspired. 

We may hold converse with all forms 
Of the mauA'-sided mind. 
And those whom passion hath not blinded, 
Subtle-thoughted, mvriad-minded. 



My friend, with you to live alone. 
Were how much better than to own 
A crown, a sceptre, and a throne! 

strengthen me, enlighten me! 

1 faint in this obscurity. 
Thou dewy dawn of memory. 



SONG 



27 




SONG. 



SPIRIT haunts the 3^ear's last hours 
DwelHng amid these yellowing bowers: 

To himself he talks; 
For at eventide, listening earnestly, 
At his work you may hear him sob and sigh 

In the walks; 

Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks 
Of the mouldering flowers: 

Heavily hangs the broad sunfl.ower 

Over its grave i' the enrth so chilly., 
Heavily hangs the hollyhock, 

Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. 



II. 

The air is dcimp, and hush'd, and close. 

As a sick man's room when he taketh repose 

An hour before death; 
My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves 
At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves. 
And the breath 

Of the fading edges of box beneath, 
And the year's last rose. 

Heavily hangs the broad sunflower 

Over its grave i' the earth so chilly, 
Heavily hangs the hollyhock. 
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. 



28 



THE POET. 




THE POET. 



HE poet in a golden clime was born, 

With golden stars above ; 
Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of 
scorn, 

The love of love. 



He saw thro' life and death, thro' good and ill, 

He saw thro' his own soul. 
The marvel of the everlasting will, 

An open scroll, 

Before him lay: with echoing feet he threaded 

The secretest walks of fame: 
'The viewless arrows of his thoughts were headed 
And wing'd with flame, 



Like Indian reeds blown from his silver tongue, 

And of so fierce a flight. 
From Calpe unto Caucasus they sung, 

Filling with light 

And Vi-.g-rani: melodies the winds whidi bore 

Them earthward till the}^ lit; 
Then, like the arrow-seeds of the field flower 

The fruitful wit 

Cleaving, took root, and springing forth anew. 

Where'er they fell, behold, 
Like to the mother plant in semblance, grew 

A flower all gold, 



And bravely furnish'd all abroad to fling 

The winged shafts of truth. 
To throng with stately blooms the breathing spring 

Of Hope and Youth. 



THE POET. 



29 



So many minds did gii'd tiieir orbs with beams, 

Tho' one did fling the fire. 
Heaven flow'd upon the soul in many dreams 

Of hio^li desire. 



Thus truth was multiphed on truth, the world 

Like one great garden show'd. 
And thro' the wreaths of floating dark upcurl'd. 

Rare sunrise flow'd. 



And Freedom rear'd in that august sunrise 

Her beautiful bold brow, 
When rites and forms before his burning eyes 

Melted like snow. 

There was no blood upon her maiden robes 

Sunn'd by those orient skies; 
But round about the circles of the globes 

Of her keen eyes 



And in her raiment's hem was traced in flame 

Wisdom, a name to shake 
All evil dreams of power — a sacred name, 

And when she spake. 

Her words did gather thunder as they ran, 
And as the lightning to the thunder 

Which follows it, riving the spirit of man, 
Making earth wonder. 



So was their meaning to her words. Xo sword 
Of wrath her right arm whirl'd. 

But one poor poet's scroll, and with his word 
She shook the w^orld. 



30 



THE POETS MIND. 




THE POET'S MIND, 



EX not thou the poet's mind 
With thy shallow wit: 
^j Vex not thou the poet's mind ; 
For thou canst not fathom it. 
Clear and bright it should be ever 
Flowing like a crystal river; 
Brio^ht as light, and clear as wind. 



Dark brow'd sophist, come notanear; 
All the place is holy ground ; 
Hollow smile and frozen sneer 

Come not here. 
Holy water will I pour 
Into every spicy flower 
Of the laurel-shrubs that hedge it around. 
The flowers woukl faint at your cruel cheer, 
In your eye there is death, 
There is frost in your breath 
Which would blight the plants. 
Where you stand you cannot hear 
From the groves within 
The wild-bird's din. 
In the heart of the garden the merry bird chants. 
It would fall to the ground if you came in. 
In the middle leaps a fountain 
Like sheet lightning, 
Ever brightening 
With a low melodious thunder. 
All day and all night it is ever drawn 
From the brain of the purple mountain 
Which stands in the distance 3'onder: 
It springs on a level of bowery lawn, 
And the mountain draws it from Heaven above. 
And it sings a song of undying love; 
And yet, tho' its voice be so clear and full. 
You never would hear it; your ears are so dull; 
So keep where you are: you are foul with sin; 
It would shrink to the earth if you came in. 




o 


G 


£ 


O 


(U 


(!> 


"a- 


CJ 


u 


CJ 


:s 


C3 


a 


ta 


1 


^ 




(U 


O 


•s 


.2 


.s 






'3 


05 


Si 


TJ 


J2 


C 


D 


5 


jG 


CO 






B 




£ 


'.5 



SEA FAIRIES. 



31 







m 



%YiJ B^I^IES. 










S^^^LOW sail'd the weary mariners and saw, 

' ^H^ Betwixt the green brink and the running foam, 

Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms prest 

To little harps of gold; and while they mused, 

Whispering to each other half in fear. 

Shrill music reacli'd them on the middle sea. 

Whither away, whither away, whither away? fly on more. 

Whither away from the high green field, and the happy 
blossoming shore? 

Day and night to the billow the fountain calls: 

Down shower the gambolling waterfalls 

From wandering over the lea: 

Out of the live-green heart of the dells 

They freshen the silvery-crimson shells. 

And thick with white bells the clover- hill swells 
High over the full-toned sea: 

O hither, come hither and furl your sails. 

Come hither to me and to me: 

Hither, come hither and frolic and play ; 

Here it is only the mew that wails; 

We ^vill sing to you all the day: 

Mariner, mariner, furl your sails. 

For here are the blissful downs and dales. 

And merrily, merrily carol the gales. 

And the spangle dances in bight and bay, 

And the rainbow forms and flies on the land 

Over the islands free; 

And the rainbow lives in the curve of the sand : 



32 



TO J. M. K. 



Hither, come hither and see-, 
And the rainbow hangs on the poising wave, 
And sweet is the color of cove and cave. 
And sweet sliall your welcome be: 
O hither, come hither, and be our lords 
For merry brides are we: 

We will kiss sweet kisses, and speak sweet words: 
O listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten 
With pleasure and love and jubilee : 
O listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten 
When the sharp clear twang of the golden chords 
Runs up the ridged sea, 
Who can light on as happy a shore 
All -the world o'er, all the world o'er? 

Whither away? listen and stay: mariner, mariner, fly no 
more. 



-^^%^^^ 



TO y. M. K, 




Y hope and heart is with thee — thou wilt be 
A latter Luther, and a soldier-j^riest 
To scare church-harpies from the master's feast; 
Our dusted velvets have much need of thee: 
Thou art no Sabbath drawler of old saws, 
Distill'd from some worm-canker'd homily; 
But spurr'd at heart with fieriest energy 
To embattail and to wall about thy cause 
With iron-worded proof, hating to hark 
The humming of the drowsy pulpit-drone 
Half God's good Sabbath, while the worn-out clerk 
Brow-beats his desk below. Thou from a throne 
Mounted in heaven wilt shoot into the dark 
Arrows of lightnings. I will stand and mark. 




THE DESERTED HOUSE. 



33 




THE DESERTED HOUSE. 




IrlFE and Thought have gone away- 
Side by side, 

Leaving door and windows wide; 
Careless tenants they! 

All within is dark as nio-ht: 
In the windows is no light; 
And no murmur at the door, 
So frequent on its hinge before. 



Close the door, the shutters close, 
Or thro' the windows we shall see 
The nakedness and vacanc}' 

Of the dark deserted house. 



34 



A DIRGE. 



Come away: no more of mirth 
Is here or merry-making- sound. 

The house was builded of the earth, 
And shall fall again to ground. 

Come away: for Life and Thought 

Here no longer dwell; 
But in a city glorious — 
A great and distant city— have bought 

A mansion incorruptible. 
Would they could have staid with us! 



=*^«= 





OW is done thy long day's work; 
Fold thy palms across thy breast, 
Fold thine arms, turn to thy rest. 
Let them rave. 
Shadows of the silver birk 
Sweep the green that folds thy grave. 
Let them rave. 



Thee nor carketh care nor slander; 
Nothing: but the small cold worm 
Fretteth thine enshrouded form. 

Let them rave. 
Light and shadow ever wander 
O'er the green that folds thy grave. 

Let them rave. 



A DIRGE. 35 



Thou wilt not turn upon thv bed, 
Chanteth not the brooding bee 
Sweeter tones than calumny? 

Let them rave. 
Thou wilt never raise thine head 
From the green that folds thy grave. 

Let them rave. 

Crocodiles wept tears for thee; 

The woodbine and eglatere 

Drip sweeter dews than traitor's tear. 

Let them rave. 
Rain makes music in the tree 
O'er the green that folds thy grave. 

Let them rave. 

Round thee blow, self-pleached deep, 
Bramble-roses, faint and pale, 
And long puiples of the dale. 

Let them rave. 
These in every shower creep 
Thro' the green that folds thy grave. 

Let them rave. 

The gold-eyed kingcups fine; 
TliC frail bluebell peereth over 
Rare broidry of the purple clover. 

Let them rave. 
Kings have no such couch as thine, 
As the green that folds thy grave. - 

Let them rave. 

Wild words wander here and there; 
God's great gift of speech abus'd 
]Makes thy memory confus'd : 

But let them rave. 
The balm-cricket carols clear 
In the green that folds thv grave. 

Let them rave. 



36 



A CHARACTER. 



A CHARACTER. 



^ 




^<^^^^ITH a half-glance upon the sky, 

At night he said, " The wanderings 
Of this most intricate Universe 
Teach me the nothingness of things,' 
Yet could not all creation pierce 
Beyond the bottom of his eye. 



He spake of beauty : that the dull 

Saw no divinity in grass. 

Life in dead stones, or spirit in air; 

Then looking as 'twere in a glass. 

He smooth'd his chin and sleek'd his hair, 

And said the earth was beautiful. 

He spake of virtue: not the gods 

More purely, when they wish to charm 

Pallas and Juno sitting by: 

And with a sweeping of the arm, 

And a lack-lustre dead-blue eye, 

Devolv'd his rounded periods. 

Most delicately horn* by hour 
He canvass'd human mysteries, 
And trod on silk, as if the winds 
Blew his own praises in his eyes. 
And stood aloof from other minds 
In impotence of fcUicied power. 



With lips depress'd as he were meek, 
Himself unto himself he sold ; 
Upon himself himself did feed: 
Quiet, dispassionate, and cold, 
And other than his form of creed, 
With chisell'd features clear and sleek. 




"Wherefore those dim looks of thine, 
Shadowy dreaming Adeline ?" 



ADELINE. 



37 



ADELINE, 




YSTERY of mysteries, 

Faintly smiling Adeline, 
Scarce of earth nor all divine, 
Nor unhappy, nor at rest. 
But beyond expression fair 
With thy floating flaxen hair; 
Thy rose-lips and full blue eyes 
Take the heart from out my breast. 
Wherefore those dim looks of thine. 
Shadowy, dreaming Adeline? 

Whence that aery bloom of thine. 

Like a lily which the sun 
Looks thro' in his sad decline. 
And a rose-bush leans upon. 
Thou that faintly smilest still. 
As a Naiad in a well. 
Looking at the set of day. 
Or a phantom two hours old 

Of a maiden past away. 
Ere the placid lips be cold? 
Wherefore those faint smiles of thine, 
Spiritual Adeline? 



What hope or fear or joy is thine? 
Who talketh with thee, Adeline? 
For sure thou art not all alone. 

Do beating hearts of salient springs 
Keep measure with thine own? 

Hast thou heard the butterflies 
What they *say betwixt their wings? 
Or in stillest evenings 
With what voice the violet woos 
To his heart the silver dews? 
Or when little airs arise, 
How the merry bluebell rings 

To the mosses underneath? 



ADELIXE. 




^^mm^i^im.^^^^^^^^ 



Hast thou look'd upon the breath 
Of the HHes at sunrise? 
\\'herefore that faint smile of thine, 
Shadowy, dreaming Adehne? 



Some lioney-converse feeds thy mind. 
Some spirit of a crimson rose 
In love with thee forgets to close 
His curtains, wasting odorous sighs 
All night long on darkness blind. 
AVhat aileth thee? whom waitest thou 
With thy soften'd, shadow'd brow. 

And those dew-lit eyes of thine, 
Thou faint smiler, Adeline? 



Lovest thou the doleful wind 

When thou gazest at the skies? 
Doth the low-tongued Orient 

Wander from the side of the morn, 
Drip^Ding with vSabaean spice 
On thy pillow, luwly bent 

With melodious airs lovelorn, 
Breathing light against thy face 



SUPPOSED CONFESSIOXS. 



39 



While his locks a-dropping twin'd 

Round thy neck in subtle ringf 
Make a carcanet of rays, 

And ye talk together still, 
In the language wherewith Spring 
Letters cowslips on the hill? 
Hence that look and smile of thine, 
Spiritual Adeline. 



SUPPOSED CONPBSSIOlYS 



OF A SECOND-RATE SENSITIVE MIND NOT IN UNITY WITH ITSELF, 




GOD ! my God ! have mercy now. 
I faint, I fall. Men say that thou 
Didst die for me, for such as 7ne^ 
Patient of ill, and death, and scorn. 
And that my sin was as a thorn 
Among the thorns that girt thy brow, 
Wounding thy soul. — That even now, 
In this extremest misery 
Of ignorance, 1 should require 
and if a bolt of fire 
"ve the slumberous summer noon 
io pray to thee* alone, 
y belief would stronger grow! 
' human pride brought low? 
stings of my spirit still ? 
had in my free will 
All cold, and dead^ and corpse-like grown? 
And what is left to me, but thou, 
And faith in thee? Men pass me bv; 
Christians with happy countenances — 
And children all seem full of thee! 
And women smile with saintlike glances 
Like thine own mother's when she bow'd 
Above thee, on that happy morn 
When angels spake to men aloud. 
And thou and peace to earth were born. 



40 SUPPOSED COA^FESSIONS. 

Goodwill to me as well as all — 

• — I one of them; my brothers they: 

Brothers in Christ — a world of peace 

A confidence, day after day; 
And trust and hope till things should cease, 

And then one Heaven receive us all. 



How sweet to have a common faith! 
To hold a common scorn of death! 
And at a burial to hear 

The creaking cords which wound and eat 
Into my human heart, whene'er 
Earth goes to earth, wnth grief, not fear. 

With hopeful grief, were passing sweet! 
A grief not uninform'd, and dull. 
Hearted with hope, of hope as full 
As is the blood with life, or night 
And a dark cloud with rich moonlight. 
To '-'xwA beside a grave, and see 
The red small atoms wdierewith we 
Are built, and smile in calm, and say — 
" These little motes and grains shall be 
Clothed on with immortality 
More glorious than the noon of da^^ 

All that is pass'd into the flowers, 
And into beasts and other men, 
And all the Norland whirlwind showers 
From open vaults, and all the sea 
O'erwashes with sharp salts, again 
Shall fleet together all, and be 
Indu'd with immortality." 

Thrice happy state again to be 
The trustful infant on the knee! 
Who lets his waxen flngers play 
About his mother's neck, and knows 
Nothing beyond his mother's eyes. 
They comfort him by night and day, 
They light his little life alway; 
He hath no thought of coming woes; 
He hath no care of life or death. 
Scarce outward signs of joy arise, 
Because the Spirit of happiness 
And perfect rest so inv^^ard is; 



SUPPOSED CONFESSIONS. 41 



And loveth so his innocent heart, 

Her temple and her place of birth, 

Where she would ever wish to dwell, 

Life of the fountain there, beneath 

Its salient springs, and far apart, 

Hating to wander out on earth. 

Or breathe into the hollow air. 

Whose chilliness would make visible 

Her subtile, warm, and golden breath. 

Which mixing with the infant's blood. 

Full fills him with beatitude. 

O sure it is a special care 

Of God, to fortif)^ from doubt, 

To arm in proof, and guard about 

With triple mailed trust, and clear 

Delight, the infant's dawning year. 

Would that my gloomed fancy were 

As thine, my mother, when with brows 

Propp'd on thy knees, my hands upheld 

In thine, I listen'd to thy vows. 

For me outpour'd in holiest prayer — 

For me unworthy ! — and beheld 

The mild deep eyes uprais'd, that knew 

The beauty and repose of faith, 

And the clear spirit shining through. 

O wherefore do we grow awry 

From roots which strike so deep? why dare 

Paths in the desert? Could not I 

Bow myself down, where thou hast knelt, 

To th' earth — until the ice would melt 

Here, and I feel as thou hast felt? 

What devil had the heart to scathe 

Flowers thou hadst rear'd — to brush the dew 

From thine own lily, when thy grave 

Was deep, my mother, in the clay? 

Myself? Is it thus? Myself? Had I 

So little love for thee? But why 

Prevail'd not thy pure prayers? Why pray 

To one who heeds not, who can save 

But will not? Great in faith, and strong 

Against the grief of circumstance 

Wert thou, and yet unheard? What if 

Thou pleadest still, and seest me drive 

Thro' utter dark a full-sail'd skifF, 

Unpiloted i' the echoing dance 



42 SUPPOSED CONFESSIONS. 



Of reboant whirlwinds, stooping low 
Unto the death, not sunk! I know 
At matins and at evensong, 
That thou, ii thou wert yet alive. 
In deep and daily prayers would'st strive 
To reconcile me with thy God. 
Albeit, my hope is gray and cold 
At heart, thou w^ouldest murmur still — 
'' Bring this lamb back into thy fold, 
jSIv Lord, if so it be thy will." 
Would'st tell iTie I must brook the rod, 
And chastisement of human pride: 
That pride, the sin of devils, stood 
Betwixt me and the light of God! 
That hitherto I had defied. 
And had rejected God — that Grace 
Would drop from his o'erbrimming love, 
As manna on ujy wilderness. 
If I would pray — that God would move 
And strike the hard, hard rock, and thence, 
Sv/eet in their utmost bitterness, 
• Would issue tears of penitence 
Which would keep green hope's life. Alas! 
.1 think that pride hath now no ^^lace 
Or sojourn in me. I am void. 
Dark, formless, utterly destroy'd. 

Why not believe then? Why not yet 
Anchor thy frailty there, wdiere man 
Hath moor'd and rested.^ Ask the sea 
At midnight, w^hen the crisp slope waves 
After a tempest, rib and fret 
The broad-imbased beach, whv he 
Slumbers not like a mountain tarn? 
Wherefore his ridges are not curls 
And ripples of an Inland meer? 
Wherefore he moaneth thus, nor can 
Draw down Into his vexed pools 
All that blue heaven wdilch hues and paves 
The other? I am too forlorn. 
Too shaken: my own weakness fools 
Mv judgment, and my spirit whirls, 
Mov'd from beneath with doubt and fear. 



SUPPOSED CONFESSIONS. 



43 



" Yet," said I, in my morn of youth, 
The unsun'd freshness of my strength 
When I went forth in quest of truth, 
" It is man's privilege to doubt. 
If so be that from doubt at length, 
Truth may stand forth unmov'd of change, 
An image with profulgent brows, 
And perfect limbs, as from the storm 
Of runnincT fires and fluid rang-e 
Of lawless airs at last stood out 
This excellence and solid form 
Of constant beauty. For the ox 
Feeds in the herb, and sleeps, or fills 
The horned valleys all about, 
And hollows of the fringed hills 
In summer heats, with placid lows 
Unfearing, till his own blood flows 
About his hoof. And in the flocks 



_^:^^\^^^'= ' %^^^-^^^m 



rh..i.'^-J^iy.^^-= 




The lamb rejoiceth in the year, " 

And raceth freely with his fere. 

And answers to his mother's calls 

From the flower'd furrow. In a time. 

Of which he wots not, run short pains 

Thro' his warm heart, and then, from whence 

He knows not, on his light there falls 

A shadow; and his native slope 

Where he was wont to leap and climb, 

Floats from his sick and filmed eves. 

And something in the darkness draws 

His forehead earthward, and he dies. 

Shall man live thus, in jo}- and hope 

As a young lamb, who cannot dream, 

Living, but that he shall live on? 



44 



HERO TO LEANDER. 



Shall we not look into the laws 
Of life and death, and things that seem 
And things that be, and analyze 
Our double nature, and compare 
All creeds till we have found the one, 
If one there be? " Ay me! I fear 
All may not doubt, but everywhere 
Some must clasp idols. Yet, my God, 
Whom call I Idol ? Let thy do\'e 
Shadow ine over, and my sins 
Be unremember'd, and thy love 
Enlighten me. O teach me yet 
Somewhat before the heavy clod 
Weighs on me, and the busy fret 
Of that sharp-headed worm begins 
In the gross blackness underneath. 

O weary life! O weary death! 
O spirit and heart made desolate! 
O damned vacillating- state! 



HERO TO LEANDER. 




^^^ GO not yet, my love! 

The night is dark and vast; 
The ^vhite moon is hid in her heaven above, 

And the waves climb high and fast. 
O, kiss me, kiss me, once again. 

Lest thy kiss should be the last! 
O kiss me ere we part; 
Grow closer to my heart! 
My heart is v^armer surely than the bosom of the main 
O joy! O bliss of blisses! 

My heart of hearts art thou. 
Come bathe me with th}' kisses, 

My eyelids and my brow. 
Hark how the wild rain hisses, 
And the loud sea roars below. 

Thy heart beats through thy ros}^ limbs, 
So gladly doth it stir; 
Thine eye in drops of gladness swims. ' 



HERO TO LEANDER. 



45 



I have bath'd thee with the pleasant myrrh; 
Thy locks are dripping balm: 
Thou shalt not wander hence to-nio-ht, 

I'll stay thee with my kisses. 
To-night the roaring brine 

Will rend thy golden tresses; 
The ocean with the morrow light 
Will be both blue and calm : 
And the billow will embrace thee with a kiss as soft as mine. 




No Western odors wander 

On the black and moaning sea, 
x\nd when thou art dead, Leander, 

My soul must follow thee! 
O go not yet, my love! 

Thy voice is sweet and low ; 
The deep salt wave breaks in above 

Those marble steps below. 
The turret-stairs are wet 
That lead into the sea. 
Leander! go not yet, 
The pleasant stars have set: 
O, go not, go not yet, 
Or I will follow thee I 



46 THE BURIAL OF LOVE. 




THE BURIAL OF LOVE. 



II IS eyes in eclipse, 
^l^yi^ Pale-cold his lips, 

"^^ The light of his hopes unfed, 
Mute his tongue, 
His bow unstrung 
With the tears he hath shed, 
Backward drooping his graceful head, 
Love is dead: 
His last arrow is sped: 
He hath not another dart; 
Go — carry him to his dark deathbed; 
Bury him in the cold, cold heart- 
Love is dead. 

O truest love, art thou forlorn, 

■ And unreveng'd ? thy pleasant wiles 
Forgotten, and thnie innocent joy? 
Shall hollow-hearted apathy, 
The cruellest form of perfect scorn. 
With languor of most hateful smiles, 
Forever write, 
In the wither'd light 
Of the tearless eye. 
An epitaph that all may spy? 
No! sooner she herself shall die. 

For her the showers shall not fall. 
Nor the round sun shine that shineth to all; 

Her light shall into darkness change; 
For her the green grass shall not spring. 
Nor the rivers flow, nor the sweet birds sing, 

Till Love have his full revenge. 




THE MTSTIC 



47 



THE MTSTIC. 




S-NGELS have talk'd with him, and show'd him 
thrones: 
Ye knew him not: he was not one of ye, 
Ye scorn'd him with an undiscerning scorn : 
Ye could not read the marvel in his eye, 
The still serene abstraction : he hath felt 
The vanities of after and before; 
Albeit, his spirit and his secret heart 
The stern experiences of converse lives. 
The linked woes of many a fiery change 
Had purified, and chasten'd, and made free, 
Always there stood before him, night and day, 
Of wayward vary-color'd circumstance 
The imperishable presences serene, 
Colossal, without form, or sense, or sound. 
Dim shadows but unwaning presences 
Four-fac'd to four corners of the sky; 
And yet again, three shadows, fronting one, 
One forward, one respectant, three but one; 
And yet again, again and evermore. 
For the two first were not, but onl}'- seem'd. 
One shadow in the midst of a great light. 
One reflex from eternity on time. 
One mighty countenance of perfect calm. 
Awful with most invariable e3'es. 
For him the silent congregated hours, 
Daughters of time, divinely tall, beneath 
Severe and youthful brows, with shining e3'es 
Smiling a godlike smile (the innocent light 
Of earliest youth pierc'd thio' and thro' with all 
Keen knowledges of low-embowed eld) 
Upheld, and ever hold aloft the cloud 
Which droDps low-hung on either gate of life, 
Both birth and death: he in the center fixt. 
Saw far on each side through the grated gates 
Most pale and clear and lovely distances. 
He often lying broad awake, and yet 
Remaining from the body, and apart 



48 



ELEGIACS. 



In intellect and power and will, hath heard 
Time flowing in the middle of the night, 
And all things creeping to a day of doom. 
How could ye know him ? Ye were yet within 
The narrower circle: he had well-nigh reach'd 
The last, which with a region of white flame, 
Pure without heat, into a larger air 
Upburning, and an ether of black blue, 
Investeth and insfirds all other lives. 



ELEGIACS, 




^ OW-FLOWING breezes are roaming the broad valley dimm'd in 
the glooming: 
Thro' the black-stenrii'd pines only the far river shines : 
Creeping thro' blossomy rushes and bowers of rose-blowing bushes 
Down by the poplar tall rivulets babble and fall. 

Barketh the shepherd-dog cheerily; the grasshopj^er carroUeth clearly; 
Deeply the turtle cooes; shrilly the owlet halloos; 

Winds creep: dews fall chilly: in her first sleep earth breathes stilly: 
Over the pools in the burn water-gnat murmur aud mourn. 
vSadly the far kine loweth : the glimmering water outfloweth : 
Twin peaks shadow'd with pine slope to the dark hvaline. 
Low-thron'd Hesper is stay'd between the two peaks; but the Naiad» 
Throbbing in wild unrest holds him beneath in her breast. 
The ancient poetess singeth that Hesperus all things bringeth. 
Smoothing the wearied mind : bring me my love, Rosalind. 
Thou comest inorning and even; she cometh not inorning or even^ 
False-eyed Hesper, unkind, where is my sweet Rosalind.'' 





^'With an inner voice the river ran, 
Adown it floated a dying swan." 



THE DYING SWAN. 



49 



THE DTING SWAN. 




HE plain was grassy, wild and bare, 
Wide, wild, and open to the air, 
Which had built up everywhere 

An under-roof of doleful gray. 
With an inner voice the river ran, 
xA.down it floated a dying swan. 
And loudly did lament. 
It was the middle of the day. 
Ever the weary wind went on, 

And took the reed-tops as it went. 



Some blue peaks in the distance rose, 

And white against the cold-white skj^, 

Shone out their crowning snows. 
One willow over the river wept. 

And shook the wave as the wind did sigh; 

Above in the wind was the sw^allow, 
Chasing itself at its ow^n wild v/ill, 
And far thro' the marish green and still 
The tangled waiter-courses slept, 

Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow. 



The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul 

Of that waste place with joy 

Hidden in sorrow : at first to the ear 

The warble w^as low, and full and clear; 

And floating about the under-sky, 

Prevailing in weakness the coronach stole 

Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear; 

But anon her awful jubilant voice. 

With a music strange and manifold, 

Flow'd forth on a carol free and bold ; 

As when a mighty people rejoice 

With shawms, and with cymbals, and harios of gold, 

And the tumult of their acclaim is roU'd 

Thro' the open gates of the city afar. 

To the shepherd who watcheth the evening star. 



50 



THE BALLAD OF ORIANA. 



And the creeping mosses and clambering weeds, 
And the willow-branches hoar and dank, 
And the wavy swell of the soughing reeds, 
And the wave- worn horns of the echoing bank, 
And the silvery marish-flowers that throng 
The desolate creeks and pools among. 
Were flooded over with eddying song. 



THE BALLAD OF ORIANA, 




Y heart is wasted with my woe, 
Oriana. 
There is no rest for me below, 
Oriana. 
When the long dun wolds are ribb'd with snow, 
And loud the Norland whirlwinds blow, 
Oriana, 
Alone 1 wander to and fro, 
Oriana. 



Ere the light on dark was growing, 

Oriana. 
At midnio-ht the cock was crowing-, 

Oriana : 
Winds were blowing, waters flowing, 
We heard the steeds to battle going, 

Oriana ; 
Aloud the hollow bugle blowing, 

Oriana. 



In the yew-wood black as night, 

Oriana, 
Ere I rode into the fight, 

Oriana, 
While blissful tears blinded my sight 
By star-shine and by moonlight, 

Oriana, 
I to thee my troth did plight, 

Oriana. 



THE BALLAD OF ORIANA. 51 

She stood upon the castle wall, 

Oriana : 
She watch'd my crest among them all, 

Oriana : 
She saw me fight, she heard me call. 
When forth there stept a foeman tall, 

Oriana, 
At ween me and the castle walL 

Oriana. 

The bitter arrow went aside, 

Oriana : 
The false, false arrow went aside, 

Oriana : 
The damned arrow glanc'd aside, 
And pierc'd thy heart, my love, my bride, 

Oriana! 
Thy heart, my life, my love, m}- bride, 

Oriana! 

Oh! narrow, narrow was the space, 

Oriana. 
Loud, loud rung out the bugle's brays, 

Oriana. 
Oh! deathful stabs were dealt apace. 
The battle deepen'd in its place, 

Oriana ; 
But I was down upon my face, 

Oriana. ^ 

They should have stabb'd me where I lay, 

Oriana! 
How could I rise and come away, 

Oriana ? 
How could I look upon the day? 
They should have stabb'd me where I lay, 

Oriana— 
They should have trod me into clay, 

Oriana. 

O breaking heart that will not break, 

Oriana ! 
O pale, pale face so sweet and meek, 

Oriana! 



52 THE BALLAD OF OR I AN A. 



Thou smilest, but thou dost not speak, 
And then the tears run down my cheek, 

Oriana : 
What wantest thou? whom dost thou seek, 

Oriana ? 

I cry aloud : none hear my cries, 

Oriana. 
Thou comest atween me and the skies, 

Oriana. 
I feel the tears of blood arise 
Up from my heart unto my eyes, 

Oriana. 
Within thy heart my arrow lies, 

Oriana. 

O cursed hand! O cursed blow! 
Oriana! 

happy thou that liest low, 

Oriana! 
All night the silence seems to flow 
Beside me in my utter woe, 

Oriana. 
A weary, w^eary wa}^ I go, 

Oriana. 

When Norland winds pipe down the sea„ 
Oriana, 

1 walk, I dare not think of thee, 

Oriana. 
Thou liest beneath the greenwood tree,, 
I dare not die and come to thee, 

Oriana. 
I hear the roaring of the sea, 

Oriana. 




THE MERMAN. 



53 



THE MERMAN, 




HO would be, 

"^A merman bold, 
'S Sitting alone, 
Singingalone 
Under the sea, 
With crown of gold, 
On a throne? 



I would be a merman bold, 
I would sit and sing the whole of the day ; 
I would fill the sea-halls with a voice of power; 
But at night I would roam abroad and j^lay 
With the mermaids in and out of the rocks, 
Dressing their hair with the white sea-flower; 
And holding them back by their flowing locks 
I would kiss them often under the sea, 
And kiss them again till they kiss'd me 

Laughingly, laughingly; 
And then we would wander away, away, 
To the pale-green sea-groves straight and high, 

Chasing each other merrily. 



There would be neither moon nor star;- 

But the wave would make music above us afar — 

Low thunder and light in the magic night — 

Neither moon nor star. 
We would call aloud in the dreamy dells, 
Call to each other and whoop and cry 

All night, merrily, merri]}-; 
They would pelt me with starry spangles and shells, 
Laughing and clapping their hands between, 

All night, merrily, merrily: 
But I would throw to them back in mine 
Turkis and agate and almondine* 
Then leaping out upon them unseen 
I would kiss them often under the sea. 



54 



THE MERMAID. 



And kiss them ao^ain till they kiss'd me 

Laughingly, laughingly. 
Oh! what a happy life were mine 
Under the hollow-hung ocean green! 
Soft are the moss-beds under the sea; 
We would live merrily, merrily. 



"*^^i^=^}^^^^=^' 



THE MERMAID, 



--^ HO would be 

A mermaid fair, 
Singing alone, 
Combing her hair 
Under the sea, 
In a golden curl 
With a comb of pearl, 
On a throne? 

I would be a mermaid fair; 
I would sing to myself the whole of the day; 
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair; 
And still as I combVl I would sing and say, 
" Who is it loves me? who loves not me? " 
I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall> 
Low adown, low adbwn. 
From under my starry sea-bud crown 

Low adown and around. 
And I should look like a fountain of gold 
Springing alone 
With a shrill inner sound, 

Over the throne 
In the midst of the hall ; 
Till that great sea-snake under the sea 
From his coil'd sleeps in the central deeps 
Would slowly trail himself sevenfold 
Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the gate 
With his large calm eyes for the love of me. 
And all the mermen under the sea 
Would feel their immortality 
Die in their hearts for the love of me. 





THE MERMAID. 



CIRC UMS TANCE. 



But at night I would wander away, away, 

I would fling on each side my low-flowing locks, 
And lightly vault from the throne and play 
With the mermen in and out of the rocks, 
We would run to and fro, and hide and seek, 

On the brond sea-wolds in the crimson shells, 
Whose siher}' spikes are nighest the sea. 
But if any came near I would call, and shriek, 
And adown the steep like a wave I would leap 

From the diamond-ledges that jut from the dells; 
For I would not be kiss'd by all who would list. 
Of the bold merry mermen under the sea; 
They v/ould sue me, and woo me, and flatter me. 
In the purple twilights under the sea; 
But the king of them all would carry me, 
Woo me, and win me, and marry me. 
In the branching jaspers under the sea; 
Then all the dry pied things that be 
In the hueless mosses under the sea 
Would curl round my silver feet silently, 
All looking up for the love of me. 
And if I should carol aloud, from aloft 
All things that are forked, and horned, and soft 
Would lean out from the hollow sphere of the sea, 
All looking- down for the love of me. 



••-^5S^^l^<^t^«- 



CIR CUMS TANCE. 



Two children in two neighbor villages 
Playing mad pranks along the healthy leas; 
Two strangers meeting at a a festival; 
Two lovers whispering by an orchard wall; 
Two lives bound fast in one with golden ease; 
Two graves grass-green beside a gray church- 
tower, 
Wash'd with still rains, and daisy-blossom'd; 
Two children in one hamlet born and bred; 
So runs the round of life from hour to hour. 



56 



LOVE A .Vn DE A TH.— TO J UL TE T. 



LOVE AND DEATH. 




HAT time the mighty moon was gathering hght 
Love pac'd the thy my plots of Paradise, 
And all about him roll'd his lustrous eyts: 
When, turning round a cassia, full in vie^v, 
Death, walking all alone beneath a yew. 
And talking to himself, first met his sight: 
You must begone," said Death, "these walks are mine.' 



Love wept and spread his sheeny vans for flight; 
Yet ere he parted said, " This hour is thine : 
Thou art the shadow of life, and as the tree 
Stands in the sun and shadows all beneath, 
So in the light of great eternity 
Life eminent creates the shade of death; 
The shadow passeth when the tree shall fall. 
But I shall reiofir forever over all." 



•-^;5<K^)f^^c=$^- 



TO JULIET 



Sainted Juliet! dearest name! 
If to love be life alone, 
Divinest Juliet, 
I love thee, and live; and yet 
Love unreturn'd is like the fragrant flame 
Folding- the slaughter of the sacrifice 

Offered to gods upon an altar-throne; 
My heart is lighted at thine eyes, 
Chang'd into fire, and blown about with sighs. 



TIMBUCTOO. 



57 



TIMBUCTOO,^ 




"Deep in that lion-haunted inland lies 
A mystic city, ^oal of high emprise." 

Chapman. 

STOOD Upon the mountain which o'erlooks 
The narrow seas, whose rapid interval 
Parts Afric from green Europe, when the sun 
Had fall'n below th' Atlantic, and above 
The silent heavens were blench'd with fairy light, 
Uncertain whether fairy light or cloud 
Flowing southward, and the chasms of deep, deep 
blue 

Slumber'd unfathomable, and the stars 

Were flooded over with clear glory and pale. 

I gaz'd upon the sheeny coast beyond, 

There where the Giant of old Time infix'd 

The limits of his prowess, pillars high 

Long time eras'd from earth : even as the sea 

When weary of wild inroad buildeth up 

Huge mounds whereb}' to stay his yeasty waves. 

And much I mused on legends quaint and old 

Which whilome won the hearts of all on earth 

Towards their brightness, ev'n as flame draws air; 

But had their being in the heart of man 

As air is th' life of flame: and thou wert then 

A centred glory-circled memory, 

Divinest Atalantis, whom the waves 

Have buried deep, and thou of later name. 

Imperial Eldorado, roof'd with gold : 

Shadows to vv^hich, despite all shocks of change, 

All on-set of capricious accident. 

Men clung with yearning hope which would not die. 

As when in some great city where the walls 

Shake, and the streets with ghastly faces throng'd, 

Do utter forth a subterranean voice. 

Among the inner cohuiins far retir'd 

At midnight, in the lone Acropolis, 

Before the awful genius of the place 



* A Poem which obtained the Chancellor's Medal at the Cambridge Commencement A. D. 1829. 
Tennyson, of Trinity College. 



By A. 



58 TIMBUCTOO. 



Kneels the pale Priestess in deep faith, the while 
Above her head the weak lamp dips and winks 
Unto the fearful summoning without: 
Nathless she ever clasps the marble knees, 
Bathes the cold hand with tears, and gazeth on 
Those eyes which wear no light but that wherewith 
Her fantasy informs them. 

Where are ye, 
Thrones of the western wave, fair Islands green? 
Where are your moonlight halls, your cedarn glooms, 
The blossoming abysses of your hills? 
Your flowering capes, and your gold-s:uided bays 
Blown round with happy au's of odorous wands? 
Where are the infinite ways, which, seraph-trod, 
Wound thro' your great Elysiah solitudes^ 
Whose lowest depths were, as with visible love, 
Fill'd with Divine effulgence, circumfus'd. 
Flowing between the clear and polish'd stems, 
And ever circling round their emerald cones 
In coronals and glories, such as gird 
The unfading foreheads of the Saints in Heaven? 
For nothing visible, they say, had birth 
In that blest ground, but it was phiy'd about 
With its peculiar glory. Then I rais'd 
My voice and cried, " Wide Afric, doth thy sun 
Lighten, thy hills enfold a city as fair 
As those w^hich starr'd the night o' the elder world? 
Or is the rumor of thy Timbuctoo 
A dream as frail as tiiose of ancient time? " 

A curb of whitening, flashing, ebbing light! 
A rustling of white wings! the bright descent 
Of a young Seraph! and he stood beside me 
There on the ridge, and look'd into my face 
With his unutterable, shining orbs, 
So that with hasty motion I did veil 
My vision with both hands, and saw before me 
Such color'd spots as dance athwart the eyes 
Of those that gaze upon the noonday sun. 
Girt \\\t\i a zone of flashing gold beneath 
His breast, and compass'd round about his brow 
With triple arch of everchanging bows. 
And circl'd with the glory of living light 
And alternation of all hues, he stood. 



TIMBUCTOO. 59 



" O child of man, why muse you here alone 
Upon the mountain, on the dreams of old 
Which fiil'd the earth with passing loveliness. 
Which flung strange music on the howling winds, 
And odors rapt from remote Paradise? 
Thy sense is clogg'd with dull mortality: 
Open thine eyes and see." 

I look'd, but not 
Upon his face, for it was wonderful 
With its exceeding brightness, and the light 
Of the great Angel Mmd which look'd from out 
The starry glowing of his restless eyes. 
I felt my soul grow mighty, and my spirit 
With supernatural excitation bound 
Within me, and my mental eye grew large 
With such a vast circumference of thought, 
That in my vanity I seem'd to stand 
Upon the outward verge and bound alone 
Of full beatitude. Each failing sense. 
As with a momentary flash of light. 
Grew thrillingly distinct and keen. I saw 
The smallest grain that dappled the dark earth, 
The indistinctest atom in deep air. 
The moon's white cities, and the opal width 
Of her small glowing lakes, her silver heights 
Unvisited with dew of vagrant cloud. 
And the unsounded, undescended depth 
Of her black hollows. The clear galaxy 
Shorn of its hoary lustre, wonderful. 
Distinct and vivid with sharp points of light, 
Blaze within blaze, an unimagin'd depth 
And harmony of planet-girded suns 
And moon-encircl'd planets, wheel in wheel, 
Arch'd the wan sapphire. Nay — the hum of men, 
Or other things talking in unknown tongues, 
And notes of busy life in distant worlds 
Beat like a far wave on my anxious ear. 

A maze of piercing, trackless, thrilling thoughts. 
Involving and embracing each with each. 
Rapid as fire, inextricably link'd. 
Expanding momently with every sight 
And sound which struck the palpitating sense, 
The issue of strong impulse, hurried thro' 



60 TIMBUCTOO. 



The riven rapt brain; as when in some large lake 
From pressure of descendant crags, \Yhich lapse 
Disjointed, crumbling from their parent slope 
At slender interval, the level calm 
Is ridg'd with restless and increasing spheres 
Which break upon each other, each th' effect 
Of separate impulse, but more fleet and strong 
Than its precursor, till the eye in vain 
Amid the wild unrest of swimming shade 
Dappl'd wnth hollow and alternate rise 
Of interpenetrated arc, would scan 
Definite round. 

I know not if I shape 
These things with accurate similitude 
From visible objects, for but dimly now", 
Less vivid than a half-forgotten dream. 
The memory of that mental excellence 
Comes o'er me, and it may be I entwine 
The indecision of my present mind 
With its past clearness, yet it seems to me 
As even then the torrent of quick thought 
Absorb'd me from the nature of itself 
With its own fleetness. ^Vhere is he, that borne 
Adown the sloping of an arrowy stream, 
Could link his shallop to the fleeting edge, 
And muse midway with philosophic calm 
Upon the wondrous laws w'hich regulate 
The fierceness of the bounding element? 

^Nly thoughts which long had grovell'd in the slime 
Of this dull world, like dusky worms w4iich house 
Beneath unshaken waters, but at once 
Upon some earth-awakening day of spring 
Do pass from gloom to glory, and aloft 
W^innow the purple, bearing on both sides 
Double display of star-lit wings, which burn 
Fan-like and fibred with intensest bloom; 
Even so my thoughts erewhile so low, now felt 
Unutterable buovancv and strength 
To bear them upward through the trackless fields 
Of undefin'd existence far and free. 

Then first within the South methought T saw 
A wilderness of spires and crystal pile 



TIMBUCTOO. 61 



Of rampart upon rampart, dome on dome, 
Illimitable range of battlement 
On battlement, and the Imperial height 
Of canopy o'ercanopied. 

Behind 
In diamond light upspring the dazzling peaks 
Of Pyramids, as far surpassing earth's 
As heaven than earth is fairer. Each aloft 
Upon his narrow'd eminence bore globes 
Of wheeling suns, or stars, or semblances 
Of either, showering circular abyss 
Of radiance. But the glory of the place 
Stood out a pillar'd front of burnish'd gold, 
Interminably high, if gold it were 
.Of metal more ethereal, and beneath 
Two doors of blinding brilliance, where no gaze ' 
Might rest, stood open, and the eye could scan. 
Thro' lengths of porch and valve and boundless hall. 
Part of a throne of fiery flame, wherefrom 
The snowy skirting of a garment hung. 
And glimpse of multitude of multitudes 
That minister'd around it — if I saw 
These things distinctly, for my human brain 
Stagger'd beneath the vision, and thick night 
Came down upon my eyelids, and I fell. 

With ministering hand he rais'd me up: 
Then with a mournful and ineffable smile. 
Which but to look on for a moment fiU'd 
My eyes with irresistible sweet tears. 
In accents of majestic melody. 
Like a swoln river's gushings in still night 
Mingl'd with floatmg music, thus he spake: 

" There is no mightier Spirit than I to sway 
The heart of man: and teach him to attain 
By shadowing forth the Unattainable; 
And step by step to scale that mighty stair 
Whose landing-place is wrapt about with clouds 
•Of glory of heaven.* With earliest light of spring, 
And in the glow of sallow summer-tide, 
And in red autumn when the winds are wild 

* " Be ye perfect, even as your Father jn heaven is perfect." 



62 TIMBUCTOO. 



With gambols, and when full-voiced v/inter roofs 

The headlands with inviolate white snow, 

I play about his heart a thousand w^ays, 

Visit his eves with visions, and his ears 

With harmonies of wind and wave and wood, 

— Of winds which tell of waters, and of waters 

Betraying the close kisses of the wind — 

And win him unto me, and few there be 

So gross of heart who have not felt and known 

A higher than they see: they with dim eyes 

Behold me darkling. Lo! I ha\'e given thee 

To understand iny presence, and to feel 

My fulness: I have filPd thy lips with power, 

I have rais'd thee nigher to the spheres of heaven, 

Man's first, last home: and thou with ravish'd sense 

Listenest the lordly music flowing from 

The illimitable years. I am the Spirit, 

The permeating life which courseth thro' 

All th' intricate and labyrinthine veins 

Of the great vine of Fable, which, outspread 

With growth of shadowing leaf and clusters rare 

Reacheth to every corner under heaven. 

Deep-rooted in the living soil of truth; 

So that men's hopes and fears take refuge in 

The fragrance of Its complicated glooms. 

And cool impeached twilights. Child of man, 

Seest thou yon river, whose translucent wave. 

Forth issuinof from the darkness, ^vindeth throuofh 

The argent streets o' the city, imaging 

The soft inversion of her tremulous domes. 

Her gardens frequent with the stately palm, 

Her pfigods hung with music of sweet bells. 

Her obelisks of ranged chrysolite. 

Minarets and towers? Lo! how he passeth by. 

And gulfs himself in sands, as not enduring 

To carry thro' the world those waves, which bore 

The reflex of my city in their depth. 

O city! O latest throne! where I was rais'd 

To be a ni} stery of loveliness 

Unto all eyes, the time has well-nigh come 

When I must render up this glorious home 

To keen Discovery ; soon yon brilliant towers 

Shall darken with the waving of her wand; 

Darken and shrink and shiver into huts. 

Black specks amid a waste of dreary sand. 



THE GRASSHOPPER. 



63 



Low-built, mud-wall'd, barbarian settlements. 
How changed from this fair city! " 

Thus far the Spirit: 
Then parted heavenward on tlie wing: and I 
Was left alone on Calpe, and the moon 
Had fallen from the night, and all was dark! 



-^=o»2n»'?^^:?g-?S^«n&o=^ 




THE GRASSHOPPER. 



OICE of the summer wind, 
Joy of the summer plain, 
^Life of the summer hours, 
Carol clearly, bound along. 
No Tithon thou as poets feign 
• (Shame fall 'em, they are deaf and blind), 
But an insect lithe and strong. 
Bowing the seeded summer flowers. 
Prove their falsehood and \hy quarrel, 

Vaulting on thine airy feet. 
Clap thy shielded sides and carol, 

Carol clearly, chirrup sweet. 
Thou art a mailed warrior in youth and strength com- 
plete 
Arm'd cap-a-pie, 
Full fair to see; 
Unknowing fear, 
Undreading loss, 
A gallant cavalier, 
Sans peu7' et sans 7'eproche^ 
In sunlight and in shadow. 
The Bayard of the meadow. 



I would dwell with thee, 
Merry grasshopper. 

Thou art so glad and free. 
And as light as air; 



64 



TO A LADT SLEEPING. 



Thou hast no sorrow or tears, 
Thou hast no compt of years, 
No wither'd immortality, 
But a short youth, sunny and free 
Carol clearly, bound along. 

Soon thy joy is over, 
A summer of loud song. 
And slumbers in the clover. 
What hast thou to do with evil 
In thine hour of love and revel, 

In thy heat of summer 2:)ride, 
Pushing the thick roots aside 
Of the sino^ing- flower'd trrasses. 
That brush thee with their silken tresses? 
What hast thou to do with evil. 
Shooting, singing, ever springing 

In and out the emerald glooms, 
Ever leaping, ever singing. 

Lighting on the golden blooms? 




TO A LADT SLEEPING, 




\ THOU whose fringed lids I gaze upon. 
Thro' whose dim brain the wing'd dreams are borne. 
Unroof the shrines of clearest vision. 
In honor of the silver-flecked morn; 
Long hath the white wave of the virgin light 
Driven back the billow of the dreamful dark. 
Thou all unwittingly prolongest night. 
Though long ago listening the poised lark. 
With eyes dropt downward thro' the blue serene. 

Over heaven's parapet the angels lean. 



CHORUS. 



65 



CHORUS. 



IN AN UNPUBLISHED DRAMA, WRITTEN VERY EARLY. 




HE varied earth, the moving heaven, 

The rapid waste of roving sea. 
The fountain-pregnant mountains riven 

To shapes of wildest anarchy. 
By secret fire and midnight storms 

That wander round their windy cones, 
The subtle life, the countless forms 
Of living things, the wondrous tones 
Of man and beast are full of strange 
Astonishment and boundless change. 

The day, the diamond'd night, 

The echo, feeble child of sound, 
The heavy thunder's griding might, 

The herald lightning's starry bound, 
The vocal spring of bursting bloom. 
The naked summer's glowing birth, 
The troublous autumn's sallow gloom, 
The hoar-head winter paving earth 
With sheeny white, are full of strange 
Astonishment and boundless change. 



Each sun which from the centre flings 

Grand music and redundant fire. 
The burning belts, the mighty rings. 

The murm'rous planets' rolling choir, 
The globe-filled arch that, cleaving air, 

Lost in its own eflfulgence sleeps. 
The lawless comets as they glare 

And thunder through the sapphire deeps 
In wayward strength, are full of strange 
Astonishment and boundless change. 



66 



rATIONAL SONG. 





NATIONAL SONG. 

HERE is no land like England 
Where'er the light of day be; 
There are no hearts like English hearts, 

Such hearts of oak as they be. 
There is no land like England 

Where'er the light of day be; 
There are no men like Englishmen, 
So tall and bold as they be. 



CHORUS. 

For the French the Pope may shrive 'em 
For the devil a whit we heed 'em: 
As for the French, God speed 'em 

Unto their heart's desire, 
And the merry devil drive 'em 

Through the water and the fire. 

FULL CHORUS. 

Our glory is our freedom. 
We lord it o'er the sea ; 
We are the sons of freedom, 
We are free. 



There is no land like England, 
Where'er the light of day be ; 

There are no wives like English wives, 
So fair and chaste as they be. 



ENGLISH WAR SONG. 



67 



There Is no land like England, 
Where'er the light of day be; 

There are no maids like English maids 
So beautiful as they be. 

Cho. — For the French, etc 




^ENGLISH WAR SONG. 



HO fears to die? Who fears to die? 
Is there any here who fears to die ? 
He shall find what he fears; and none shall grieve 
For the man who fears to die; 
For the withering scorn of the many shall cleave 
To the man who fears to die. 

CHORUS. 

Shout for England! 
Ho! for England! 
George for England! 
Merry England! 
England for aye! 

The hollow at heart shall crouch forlorn, 

He shall eat the bread of common scorn; 
It shall be steep'd in the salt, salt tear. 

Shall be steep'd in his own salt tear: 
Far better, far better he never were born 

Than to shame merry England here. 

Cho. — Shout for Eno-land! etc. 



There standeth our ancient enemy; 

Hark! he shouteth — the ancient enemy! 
On the ridge of the hill his banners rise; 

They stream like fire in the skies; 
Hold up the Lion of England on high 

Till it dazzle and blind his eyes. 

Cho. — Shout for England! etc. 



68 



LOVE. 



Come along! we alone of the earth are free; 
The child in our cradles is bolder than he; 
For where is the heart and strength of slaves ? 

Oh! where is the strength of slaves? 
He is weak! we are strong: he a slave, we are free 
Come along! we will dig their graves. 

Cho. — Shout forEno-land! etc. 



There standeth our ancient enemy; 

Will he dare to battle with the free ? 
Spur along! spur amain! charge to the fight; 

Charge! charge to the fight! ' 
Hold up the Lion of England on high! 

Shout for God and our right. 

Cho. — Shout for England! etc. 






'i'T.;! 





f-HOU, from the first, unborn, undying Love, 
f Albeit we gaze not on thy glories near, 
^::?F^Before the face of God didst breathe and move, 

Though night and pain and ruin and death reign here* 

Thou foldest, like a golden atmosphere. 

The very throne of the eternal God : 

Passing throuo^h thee the edicts of his fear 

Are mellow'd into music, borne abroad 

By the loud winds, though they uprend the sea, 

Even from its central deeps : thine empery 

Is over all: thou wilt not brook eclipse: 

Thou goest and returnest to His lips 

Like lightning : thou dost ever brood above 

The silence of all hearts, unutterable Love. 



To know thee is all wisdom, and old age 
Is but to know thee: dimly we behold thee 
Athwart the veils of evils v^hich infold thee. 



LOVE. 69 



We beat upon our aching hearts in rage; 

We cry for thee; we deem the vs^orld thy tomb. 

As dwellers in lone planets look upon 

The mighty disk of their majestic sun, 

HoUow'd in awful chasms of wheeling gloom, 

Making their day dim, so we gaze on thee. 

Come, thou of many crowns, white-robed Love, 

Oh! rend the veil in twain: all men adore thee; 

Heaven crieth after thee; earth waiteth for thee; 

Breathe on thy winged throne, and it shall move 

In music and in light o'er land and sea. 

And now — naethinks I gaze upon thee now. 

As on a serpent in his agonies 

Awe-stricken Indians; what time laid low 

And crushing the thick fragrant reeds he lies, ♦ 

When the new year warm-breathed on the earth, 

Waiting to light him with her purple skies. 

Calls to him by the fountain to uprise, 

Already with the pangs of a new birth 

Strain the hot spheres of his convulsed eyes, i 

And in his writhings awful hues begin 

To wander do^vn his sable-sheeny sides. 

Like light on troubled \vaters : from \vithin 

Anon he rusheth forth with merry din, 

And in him light and joy and strength abides; 

And from his brows a crown of living light 

Looks through the thick-stemm'd woods by day and night. 




70 



THE ''HOW AND THE " WH2V' 



THE " HO W' AND THE " WHT: 



? 




|- AM 



AM any man s suitor, 
If an}^ \vill be my tutor: 
Some say this life is pleasant, 
Some think it speedeth fast, 
In time there is no present, 
In eternity no future, 
In eternity no past. 
We laugh, we cry, we are born, we die. 
Who will riddle me the hoiv and the why P 



The bulrush nods unto its brother. 

The wheat-ears wdiisper to each other: 

What is it they say? what do they there.? 

Why two and two make four? why round is not square? 

Why the rock stands still, and the light clouds fly? 




Why the heavy oak groans, and the white willows sigh? 

Why deep is not high, and liigh is not deep? 

Whether we wake or w^iether we sleep? 

Whether we sleep, or whether we die? 

How you are you? why I am I? 

Who ^vill riddle me the how and the why P 



r:i.//yv.\s"^-^x^f s-^x 














J*The little bird pipeth— whv? why' 



0[ pioureq. 71 



The world is somewhat; it goes on somehow: 
But what is the meaning of t/ien and 7iozv ? 
I feel there is something; but how and what? 
I know there is somewhat: hut what and why? 
I cannot tell if that somewhat be I. 

The little bird pipeth — "why? why?" 
In the summer woods when the sun falls low, 
And the great bird sits on the opposite bough, 
And stares in his face and shouts " how? how? " 
And the black owl scuds down the mellow twilight, 
And chants "how? how? " the whole of the night. 

Why the life goes out wiien tiie blood is spilt? 

What the life is? where the soul may lie? 
Why a church is with a steeple Vniilt: 
And a house with a chimney-pot? 
Who will riddle me the how and the what? 

Who will riddle me the what and the why? 



Of f>iour£<;. 



P/LL thoughts, all creeds, all dreams are true, 
I All visions wild and strange: 
''^Man is the measure of all truth 
''SW Unto himself. All truth is change. 

All men do walk in sleep, and all 
Have faith in that they dream : 
For all things are as they seem to all. 
And all things flow like a stream. 



There is no rest, no calm, no pause. 

Nor good nor ill, nor light nor shade, 
Nor essence nor eternal laws: 

For nothing is, but all is made. 
But if I dream that all these are. 

They are to me for that I dream; 
For all things are as they seem to all. 

And all things flow like a stream. 

Argal — this very opinion is only true relatively to the flowing philosophers 



72 



DUALISMS. 



DUALISMS. 




fWO bees within a crystal flower-bell locked, 
Hum a love-lay to the west wind at noon-tide 
Both alike, they buzz together, 
Both alike, they hum together. 
Thro' and thro' the flower'd heather. 
Where in a creepmg cove the wave unshocked 
Lavs itself calm and wide, 




Over a stream two birds of glancing feather 
Do woo each other, carolling together. 
Both alike, they glide together. 

Side by side ; 
Both alike, they sing together, 
Arching blue-glossed necks beneath the purple weather. 



Two children lovelier than Love adown the lea are singing 
As they gambol, lily-garlands ever stringing: 
Both in blosm-white silk are frocked : 

Like, unlike, they roam together 

Under a summer vault of golden weather:. 

Like, unlike, they sing together 
Side by side, 

Mid-May's darling golden locked, 

Summer's tanlinsf diamond-eved. 



I 



LOVE, PRIDE, AND FORGETFULNESS.—LOST HOPE. 



73 



LOVE, PRIDE, AND FORGETFULNESS, 




RE yet my heart was sweet Love's tomb, 
Love labor'd honey busily. 
I was the hive and Love the bee, 
My heart the honeycomb. 
One very dark and chilly night 
Pride came beneath and held a light. 

The cruel vapors ^vent through all, 
Sweet Love was withered in his cell; 
Pride took Love's sweets, and by a spell 
Did change them into gall; 
And Memory, though fed by Pride, 
Did wax so thin on gall, 
Awhile she scarcely liv'd at all. 
What marvel that she died.'' 



••^$=:<^^:jg-^=:$^ 



LOST HOPE. 



You cast to ground the hope which once was mine : 
But did the while your harsh decree deplore. 

Embalming Avith sweet tears the vacant shrine. 

My heart, where Hope had been and was no more. 



So on an oaken sprout 

A goodly acorn grew; 
But w^inds from heaven shook the acorn out, 

And fill'd the cup with dew. 



74 



LOVE AND SORROW. 



LOVE AND SORROW. 



i^ll^ MAIDEN, fresher than the first green leaf 
" I With which the fearful springtide flecks the lea 
Weep not, Almeida, that I said to thee 
That thou hast half my heart, for bitter grief 
Doth hold the other half in sovranty. 
Thou art my heart's sun in love's crystalline: 
Yet on both sides at once thou canst not shine; 
Thine is the bright side of my heart and thine 
My heart's day, but the shadow of my heart, 
Issue of its o\vn substance, my heart's night 
Thou canst not lighten even with thy light. 
All-powerful in beauty as thou art. 
Almeida, if my heart were substanceless, 
Then might thy rays pass thro' to the other side, 
So swiftly, that they nowhere would abide. 
But lose themselves in ulter emptiness. 
Half-light, half-shadow, let my spirit sleep : 
They never learn'd to love who never knew to weep. 




SOA'-NETS. 



75 










^'k 






1 ' ^ ' 




SONNETS. 




^HE lintwhite and the throstlecock, 
Have voices sweet and clear; 
All in the bloomed May. 
They from the blosmy brere 
Call to the fleeting year, 
If that he would them hear 

And stay. 
Alas ! that one so beautiful 
Should have so dull an ear. 



Fair year, fair year, thy children call, 
But thou art deaf as death ; 

All in the bloomed May. 
When thy light perisheth 
That from thee issueth. 
Our life evanisheth: 

O, stay! 
Alas! that lips so cruel-dumb 
Should have so sweet a breath! 



Fair year, with brows of royal love 

Thou comest, as a king, 

All in the bloomed ISIay. 
Thy golden largess fling. 
And longer hear us sing; 
Thoug-h thou art fleet of winsf. 



"76 SONNETS. 



Yet sta3^ 
Alas! that eyes so full of light 
Should be so wanderinpf! 



Thy locks are all of sunny sheen, 
In rings of gold yronne,* 

All in the bloomed Alay. 
We pri'thee pass not on ; 
If thou dost leave the sun, 
Delight is with thee gone. 
O, stay! 
Thou art the fairest of thy feres, 
We 2:)ri'thee pass not on. 



II. 



Though Night hath climb'd her peak of highest noon, 

And bitter blasts the screaming autumn whirl, 

All night thro' archways of the bridged pearl, 

And portals of pure silver, walks the moon. 

Walk on, m}^ soul, nor crouch to agon}^. 

Turn cloud to light, and bitterness to joy. 

And dross to gold with glorious alchemy, 

Basing thy throne above the world's annoy. 

Reigrn thou above the storms of sorrow and ruth 

That roar beneath; unshaken peace hath won thee; 

So shalt thou pierce tlie woven glooms of truth; 

So shall the blessing of the meek be on thee; 

So in thine hour of dawn, the body's youth. 

An honorable eld shall come upon thee. 



III. \ 

Shall the hag Evil die with child of Good, 

Or propagate again her loathed kind, \ 

Thronging the cells of the diseased mind, \ 

Hateful with hanging cheeks, a wither'd brood, j 

Thouofh hourlv pastur'd on the salient blood? ' 

O that the wind which bloweth cold or heat 

Would shatter and o'erbear the brazen beat 

Of their broad vans, and in the solitude 

Of middle space confound them, and blow back 

Their wild cries down their cavern throats, and slake 

With points of blast-borne hail their heated eyne ! 



His crispe' hair in ring-lis was vronne."— Chaucer, Knio-htes Tal ■ 



SONNETS. 77 



So their wan limbs no more might come between 
The moon and the moon's reflex in tlie night, 
Nor blot with floatinof shades the solar ligrht. 



IV. 



I' THE glooming light 

Of middle night 

So cold and white, 
Worn Sorrow sits by the moaning wave, 

Beside her are laid 

Her mattock and spade, 
For she hath half delv'd her own deep grave. 

Alone she is there; 
The white clouds drizzle: her hair falls loose: 

Her shoulders are bare; 
Her tears are mix'd with the beaded dews. 

Death standeth by; 

She will not die; 

With glaz'd eye 
She looks at her grave: she cannot sleep; 

Ever alone 

She maketh her moan : 
She cannot speak: she can only weep. 

For she w^ill not hope. 
The thick snow falls on her flake by flake, 

The dull wave mourns down the slope, 
The world will not change, and her heart will not break. 



Could I outwear my present state of woe 
With one brief winter, and indue i' the spring 
Hues of fresh youth, and mightily outgrow 
That wan dark coil of faded suffering — 
Forth in the pride of beauty issuing 
A sheeny snake, the light of vernal bo^vers, 
Moving his crest to all sv/eet plots of flowers 
And water'd valleys where the young birds sing; 
Could I thus hope my lost delight's renewing, 
I straightly would command the tears to creep 
From my charg'd lids; but inwardly I weep; 
Some vital heat as yet my heart is wooing; 
That to itself hath drawn the frozen rain 
From mv cold eves, and melted it again. 



78 SOiViVETS. 



VI. 



The pallid thunder-stricken sigh for gain, 

Down an ideal stream they ever float, 

And sailing on Pactolus in a boat. 

Drown soul and sense, while wistfully they strain 

Weak eyes upon the glistening sands that robe 

The understream. The wise, could he behold 

Cathedral'd caverns of thick-ribbed gold 

And branching silvers of the central globe, 

Would marvel from so beautiful a sight 

How scorn and ruin, j^ain and hate could flow: 

But Hatred in a gold cave sits below; 

Pleach'd with her hair, in mail of argent light 

Shot into gold, a snake her forehead clips, 

And skins the color from her trembling lips. 



VII. 

Every day hath its night: 

Every night its morn: 
Thorough dark and bright 
Winged hours are borne: 
Ah! welaway! 
Seasons flower and fade; 
Golden calm and storm 

Mingle day b}' day. 
There is no bright form 
Doth not cast a shade — 
Ah! welawa)^ 



When we laugh, and our mirth 

Apes the happ3^ vein, 
We're so kin to earth, 

Pleasaunce fathers pain — 
Ah! welaway! 
Madness laugheth loud: 
Lausrhter brino^eth tears : 
Eyes are worn away 
Till the end of fears 
Cometh in the shroud, 
Ah! welaway! 



SOMNETS. 



79 



All Is change, woe or weal; 

Joy is Sorrow's brother; 

Grief and gladness steal 

Symbols of each other: 

Ah! welaway! 

Larks In heaven's cope 

Sing: the culvers mourn 

All the livelong day. 
Be not all forlorn : 
Let us weep In hope — 
Ah! welaway! 

VIIL 
THE TEARS OE HEAVEN. 




^ EAVEN weeps above the earth all night till morn, 
'In darkness weeps, as all asham'd to weep, 
*** Because the earth hath made her state forlorn 
With self-wrought evil of unnumber'd years, 
And doth the fruit of her dishonor reap. 
And all the day heaven gathers back her tears 
Into her own blue eyes so clear and deep. 
And showering down the glory of lightsome day. 
Smiles on the earth's worn brow to win her if she may. 




4 ". 



..,r,,,,,in''''.l|l';;'l||, ,|ll''' "Il''''n, 



l=ln(il=Hiii^n=flL. "" 



S^c^' ^15^^ 











r^T^^o!^^ 



PaBMJSpED n- D. 1^^^ 








'4r-4r^ -1^ ir- ::;^ .;^ :]^ ^ i;)'^ t^c^'###^ 




■ m'^(m ^' 

'"ii'i.h,,. ...iiiiii"^ 



'iii'".,iii|,ii"it- 



M THE LAnr or shalott. 

And by the moon the reaper weary, 
PiUng sheaves in uplands airy, 
Listening, whispers, " 'Tis tire fairy 
Lady of Shalott." 



PART II. 

There she weaves by night and day 
A magic web of colors ga}-. 
She has heard a \vhisper sav, 
A curse is on her if she stay 

To look down to Came lot. 
She knows not what the curse may be, 
And so she \veaveth steadily, 
And little other care hath she. 

The Lady of Shalott. 

And moving thro' a mirror clear 
That hangs before her all the year. 
Shadows of the world appear. 
There she sees the highway near 

Winding dov/n to Camelot: 
There the river eddy whirls. 
And there the surly village-churls. 
And the red cloaks of marl^t girls. 

Pass onward from Shalottc 

Sometimes a troop of damsels glnd, 
An abbot on an ambling pad. 
Sometimes a curly shepherd-hid, 
Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad. 

Goes by to tower'd Camelot; 
And sometinies thro' the mirror blue 
The knig-hts come ridinof two and two: 
She hath no loyal knight and true, 

The Lady of Shalott. 

But in her web she still delights 
To Aveave the mirror's magic sights. 
For often through the silent nights 
A funeral, with plumes and lights, 

And music, ^vent to Camelot: 



THE LADT OF SHALOTT. 



85 




Or Avlien the moon was overhead, 
Came two young lovers, lately wed; 
" I am half-sick of shadows," said 
The Ladv of Shalolt. 



PART in. 



A bow-shot from her bower-eaves, 
He rode betvs^eeii the barley-sheaves. 
The sun came dazzling through the leaves. 
And flam'd upon the brazen greaves 

— Of bold Sir Lancelot. 
A red-cross knight forever kneel'd 
To a lady in his shield, 
That sparkl'd on the yellow field. 

Beside remote Shalott. 



86 



THE LADT OF SHALOTT. 




The gemmy bridle glitter'd free, 
Li"ke to some branch of stars we see 
Hung in the golden Galaxy. 
The bridle bells rang merrily 

As he rode down to Camelot: 
And from his blazen'd baldric slung 
A mighty silver bugle hung, 
And as he rode his armor rung, 

Beside remote Shalott. 



All in the blue unclouded weather 
Thick -jewell'd shone 'the saddle-leather. 
The helmet and the helmet-feather 
Burn'd like one burning flame together. 

As he rode down to Camelot. 
As often thro' the ^^urple night, 
Below the starry clusters bright. 
Some bearded meteor, trailing light, 

Moves over still Shalott. 



THE LADT OF SHALOTT. 



87 



His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd: 
On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode ; 
From underneath his lielmet flow'd 
His coal-black curls as on he rode, 

As he rode down to Camelot. 
From the bank and from the river 
He flashVl into the crystal mirror, 
" Tirra lirra," by the river 

Sang Sir Lancelot. 

She left the web, she left the loom. 
She made three paces thro' the room, 
She saw tiie water-lily bloom. 
She saw the helmet and the plume, 
She look'd down to Camelot. 




Out flew the web and floated wide; 
The mirror crack'd from side to side; 
" The curse is come upon nie," cried 
The Lady of Shalott. 



S8 THE LADV OF SHALOTT. 



PART IV 



In the stormy east-wind straining, 
The pale yellow woods were ^vaning, 
The broad stream in his banks complaining, 
Heavllv the low sky raining 

Oyer tower'd Camelot; 
Down she came and found a boat 
Beneath a willow left afloat, 
And round about the prow she wrote 

The Lady of Shalott. 

And down the riyer's dim expanse — 
Like some bold seer in a trance, 
Seeing all his own mischance — 
With a glassy countenance 

Did she look to Camelot. 
And at the closing of the day 
She loos'd the chain, and down she lay; 
The broad stream bore her far away, 

The Lady of Shalott. 

Lying, robed in snowy white 
T"hat loosely flew to left and right — 
The leaves upon her falling light — - 
Thro' the noises of the night 

She floated down to Camelot, 
And as the boat-head wound along 
The willowy hills and fields among. 
They heard her singing her last song, 

The Lady of Shalott. 

Heard her carol, mournful, holy. 
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly, 
Till her blood was frozen slowly. 
And her eyes "svere darken'd wholly, 

Turn'd to tov/er'd Camelot; 
For ere she reach'd upon the tide 
The first house by the water-side, 
Singing in her song she died. 

The Lady of Shalott. 



THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 



89 



Under tower and balcony, 

By garden-wall and gallery, 

A gleaming shape she floated by, 

A corse between the houses high, 

Silent into Canielot. 
Out upon the wharfs they came, 
Knight and burgher, lord and dame. 
And round the prow they read her name, 

The Lady of Shalott, . 

Who is this? and \vhat is here? 
And in the lighted palace near 
Died the sound of royal cheer; 
And they cross'd themselves for fear, 

All the knights at Camelot: 
But Lancelot mus'd a little space: 
He said, " She has a lovely ftice; 
God in his mercy lend her grace, 

The Lady of Shalott." 




90 



MAI^/AJVA AV THB SOUTH. 



MARIANA IN THE SOUTH. 




ITH one black shadow at its feet, 

The house thro' all the level shines, 
Close-lattic'd to the brooding heat, 

And silent in its dusty vines: 
A faint-blue ridge upon the right. 

An empty river-bed before, 
And shallows on a distant shore, 
o^larins: sand and inlets brig-ht. 
But "Ave Mary," made she moan. 

And " Ave Mary,'' night and morn. 
And "Ah," she sang, "to be all alone, 
To live forgotten, and love forlorn." 

She, as her carol sadder grew. 

From brow and bosom slowly down 
Thro' rosy taper fingers drew 

Her streaming curls of deepest brown 
To left and right, and made appear. 
Still lighted in a secret shrine. 
Her melancholy eyes divine. 
The home of woe w^ithout a tear. 

And " Ave Mary," was her moan, 

" Madonna, sad is night and morn " ; 
And " Ah," she sang, " to be all alone, 
To live forgotten, and love forlorn." 



Till all the crimson chang'd, and past 

Into deep orange o'er the sea, 
Low^ on her knees herself she cast, 
Before Our Lady murmur'd she; 
Complaining, " Mother, give me grace 
To help me of my weary load." 
And on the liquid mirror glow'd 
The clear perfection of her face. 

" Is this the form," she made her moan, 

" That won his praises night and morn.^" 
And "Ah," she said, " but I wake alone, 
I sleep forgotten, I wake forlorn." 



^^^if 



^.tjQ 4v?isi?^ . 




Nor bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat." 



MAmAjVA IN THE SOUTH. 91 

Nor bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat, 

Nor any cloud would cross the vault, 
But day increas'd from heat to heat. 

On stony drought and steaming salt; 
Till now at noon she slept again, 

And seem'd knee-dee^D in mountain grass, 
And heard her native breezes pass. 
And runlets babbling down the glen. 

She breath'd in sleep a lower moan, 

And murmuring, as at night and morn, 
She thought, " ]My spirit is here alone, 
Walks forgotten, and is forlorn." 

Dreaming, she knew it was a dream : 
She felt he was and was not there. 
She woke: the babble of the stream 
Fell, and without the steady glare 
Shrank one sick willow sere and small. 
The river-bed was dusty-white; 
And all the furnace of the liHit 
Struck up against the blinding wall. 

She whisper'd, with a stifled moan 

More inward than at night or morn, 
" Sweet Alother, let me not here alone 



And, rising, from her bosom drew 

Old letters breathing of her worth. 
For " Love," tliey said, " must needs be true, 

To what is loveliest upon earth." 
An image seem'd to pass the door. 
To look at her with slight, and say, 
" But now thy beauty flows away, 
So be alone forevermore." 

" O cruel heart," she chang'd her tone, 
" And cruel love, whose end is scorn. 
Is this the end to be left alone, 

To live forgotten, and die forlorn!" 

But sometimes in the frilling day 
An image seem'd to pass the door. 

To look into her eyes and say, 

" But thou shalt be alone no more." 



92 



MAR I AX A I^^ THE SOUTH. 



And flaming downward over all 

From heat to heat the day decreas'd, 
And slovv'ly rounded to the east 
The one black shadow from the wall. 

" The day to night," she made her moan, 
" The da}' to night, the night to morn, 
And day and night I am left alone 
To live forgotten, and love forlorn." 

At eve a dry cicala sung. 

There came a sound as of the sea; 
Backward the lattice-blind she flung, 

And lean'd upon the balconv. 
There all in spaces rosy-bright 

Large Hesper glitter'd on her tears. 
And deepening thro' the silent spheres. 
Heaven o^-er Heaven lose the night. 

And \veeping then she made her moan, 

" The night comes on that knows not morn, 
When I shall cease to be all alone, 
To live forgotten, and love forlorn." 




ELEANORE. 



93 



JELEANORE. 




HY dark eyes opeii'd not, 

Nor first reveaPd themselves to English air, 
For there is nothing" here, 
Which, from the outward to the inward brought, 
Moulded thy baby thought. 
Far off from human neighborhood. 
Thou wert born, on a summer morn, 
A mile beneath the cedar-wood. 
Thy bounteous forehead was not fann'd 

With breezes from our oaken glades. 
But thou wert nurs'd in some delicious land 

Of lavish lights, and floating shades: 
And flattering thy childish thought 
The oriental fairy brought, 
At the moment of thy birth. 
From old well-heads of haunted rills. 
And the hearts of purple hills, 

And shadow'd coves on a sunny shore, 
The choicest wealth of all the earth, 
Jewel or shell, or starry ore. 
To deck thv cradle, Eleanore. 



Or the yellow-banded bees. 

Thro' half-open lattices 

Coming in the scented breeze. 

Fed thee, a child, lying alone. 

With whitest honey in fairv gardens cull'd- 
A glorious child, dreaming alone. 
In silk-'^ofi; folds, upon yielding down. 

With the hum of swarming bees 

Into dreamful slumber iull'd. 



Who may minister to thee? 

Summer herself should minister 

To thee,' with fruitage golden-rinded 
On golden salvers, or it may be, 

Youngest Autumn, in a bower 



94 ELEANORE. 



Grape thicken'd from the light and bHnded 

With many a deep-hued bell-like flower 

Of fragrant trailers, when the air 

Sleepeth over all the heaven, 
And the crag that fronts the Even, 
All along the shadowing shore. 

Crimsons over an inland mere, 
E lean ore! 

How may full-sail'd verse express. 

How may measured words adore 
The full-flowing harmony 
Of thy swan-like stateliness, 
Eleanore? 
The luxuriant symmetry 
Of thy floating gracefulness, 
Eleanore? 
Every turn and glance of thine. 
Every lineament divine, 
Eleanore, 
And the steady sunset glow, 
That stays upon thee? For in thee 
Is nothing sudden, nothing single; 
Like two streams of incense free 
From one censer, in one shrine. 
Thought and motion mingle, 
Mingle ever. Motions flow 
To one another, even as tho' 
They were modulated so 

To an unheard melody. 
Which li\'es about thee, and a s^veep 

Of richest pauses, evermore 
Drawn from each other, mellow-deep: 
Who may express thee, Eleanore? 

I stand before thee, Eleanore: 

I see thy beauty gradually unfold. 
Daily and hourly, more and more. 
I muse, as in a trance, the while 

Slowly, as from a cloud of gold. 
Comes out thy deep ambrosial smile. 
I muse, as in a trance, whene'er 

The languors of thy love-deep eyes 
Float on to me. I would I were 

So tranc'd, so wrapt in ecstacies, 



ELEANORE. 95 



To stand apart, and to adore, 
Gazing on thee forevermore. 
Serene, imperial Eleanore! 

Sometimes, with most intensity 

Gazing, I seem to see 

Thought folded over thought, smiling asleep, 

Slowly awaken'd, grow so full and deep 

In thy large eyes, that, overpower'd quite, 

I cannot veil, or droop my sight. 

But am as nothing in its light: 

As tho' a star, in inmost heaven set, 

Ev'n while we gaze on it. 

Should slowly round his orb, and slowly grow 

To a full face, there like a sun remain 

Fix'd — then as slowly fade again, 

And draw itself to what it was before; 
So full, so deep, so slow, 
Thought seeins to come and go 

In thy large eyes, imjDerial Eleanore. 







'-^''-^^ 



As thunder-clouds that, hung on high, 

Roof'd the v/orld with doubt and fear, 

Floating thro' an evening atmosphere. 

Grow golden all about the sky ; 

In thee all passion becomes passionless, 

Touch'd by thy spirit's mellowness, 

Losing his fire and active might 
In a silent meditation. 

Falling into a still delight, 

And luxury of contemplation: 



96 ELEANORE. 



As waves that up a quiet cove 
Rolling slide, and lying still 

Shadow forth the banks at will: 
Or sometimes they swell and move, 
Pressing up against the land. 
With motions of the outer sea : 
And the self-same influence 
Controlleth all the soul and sense 
Of passion gazing upon thee. 
His bow-string slacken'd, languid Lo\'e, 
Leaning his cheek upon his hand, 
Droops both his wings, regarding thee, 
And so \vould languish evermore, 
Serene, imperial Eleanore. 

But when I see thee roam, with tresses unconfin'd, 
While the amorous, odorous wind 

Breathes low between the sunset and the moon; 
Or, in a shadowv saloon, 
On silken cushions half reclin'd ; 

I watch thy grace; and in its place 
My heart a charmed slumber keeps, 

While I muse upon thy fiice; 
And a languid fire creeps 

Thro' my veins to all my frame, 
Dissolvingly and slowly: soon 

From thy rose-red lips my name 
Flovveth; and then, as in a swoon. 

With dinning sound my ears are rife,- 

My tremulous tongue falcereth, 
I lose my color, I lose my breath, 
I drink the cup of a costly death, 
Brimm'd with delirious draughts of warmest life. 
I die with my delight, before 

I hear what I would hear from thee; 
Yet tell my name again to me, 
I would be dying evermore, 
So dying ever, Eleanore, 




THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. 



THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. 



97 



THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER, 




SEE the wealthy miller yet, 

His double chin, his portly size, 
And who that knew him could forget 

The busy wrinkles round his eyes? 
The slow wise smile, that round about 

His dusty forehead dryly curl'd, 
SeemVl half-within and half-without, 

And full of dealings with the world? 

er chair I see him sit, 
fingers round the old silver cup — 
gray eyes twinkle yet 
own jest — gray eyes lit up 
With summer lightnings of a soul 

So full of summer warmth, so glad, 
So healthy, sound, and clear and whole, 
His memory scarce can make me sad. 



Yet fill my glass: give me one kiss: 

My own sweet Alice, we must die; 
There's somewhat in this world amiss 

Shall be unriddl'd by and by. 
There's somewhat flows to us in life, 

But more is taken quite away. 
Pray, Alice, pray, my darling wife, 

That we may die the self-same day. 



Have I not found a happy earth? 

I least should breathe a thought of pain. 
Would God renew me from my birth 

I'd almost live my life again. 
So sweet it seems with thee to walk. 

And once again to woo thee mine — ■ 
It seems in after-dinner talk 

Across the walnuts and the wine — 



98 THE MILLER'S DA UGHTER. 

To be the long and listless boy 

Late left an orphan of the squire, 
Where this old mansion mounted high 

Looks down upon the village spire : 
For even here, where I and you 

Have liv'd and lov'd alone so long, 
Each morn my sleep was broken thro' 

By some wild skylark's matin song. 










And oft I heard the tender dove 

In firrv woodlands making mOan; 
But ere I saw your eyes, my love, 

I had no motion of my own. 
For scarce my life with fancy play'd 

Before I dream'd that pleasant dream- 
Still hither thither idly sway'd 

Like those long mosses in the stream. 

Or from the bridge I lean'd to hear 

The milldam rushing down with noise, 
And see the minnows eVer37where 

In crystal eddies glance and poise. 
The tall flag-flowers when they sprung 

Below the range of stepping-stones, 
Or those three chestnuts near, that hung 

In masses thick with milky cones. 

But, Alice, what an hour was that. 
When after roving in the w^oods 

('Twas April then), I came and sat 
Below the chestnuts, when their buds 



\ 



THE MILLEWS DAUGHTER. 99 



Were glistening to the breezy blue; 

And on the slope, an absent fool, 
I cast me down, nor thought of you, 

But angled in the higher pool. 

A love-song I had somewhere read, 

An echo from a measur'd strain, 
Beat time to nothing in my head 

From some odd corner of the brain. 
It haunted me, the morning long. 

With weary sameness in the rhymes, 
The phantom of a silent song. 

That went and came a thousand times. 

Then leapt a trout. In lazy mood 

I watch'd the little circles die; 
They past into the level flood. 

And there a vision caught my eye; 
The reflex of a beauteous form, 

A glowing arm, a gleaming neck. 
As when a sunbeam wavers warm 

Within the dark and dimpled beck. 

For you remember, you had set. 

That morning, on the casement's edge 
A long green box of mignonette, 

And you were leaning from the ledge. 
And when I rais'd my eyes, above 

They met with two so full and bright- 
Such eyes! I swear to you, my love. 

That these have never lost their light. 

I lov'd, and love dispell'd the fear 

That I should die an early death; 
For love possess'd the atmosphere. 

And fill'd the breast with purer breath. 
My mother thought. What ails the boy.? 

For I was alter'd, and began 
To move about the house with joy. 

And with the certain step of man. 

I lov'd the brimming wave that swam 
Thro' quiet meadows round the mill, 
The sleepy pool above the dam. 



100 THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. 

The pool beneath it never still, 
The meal-sacks on the ^vhiten'd floor, 

The dark round of the dripping ^vheel, 
The very air about the door 

Made misty with the floating- meal. 

And oft in ramblings on the wold, 

When April nights began to blow, 
And April's crescent glimmer'd cold, 

I saw the village lights below; 
I knew vour taper for awav, 

And full at heart of trembling hope. 
From ofl" the wold 1 came, and lay 

Upon the freshly-flower'd slope. 

The deep brook groan'd beneath the mill? 

And '-by that lamp," I thought, '• she sitsl* 
, The white chalk-quarry from the hill 

Gleam 'd to the flying moon by fits. 
" O that I were beside her now ! 

O will she answer if I call? 
O would she give me vow for vow. 

Sweet Alice, if I told her all?" 

Sometimes I saw you sit and spin; 

And, in the pauses of the ^vind, 
Sometimes I heard you sing within; 

Sometimes your shadow cross'd the blind. 
At last you rose and mov'd the light, 

And the long shadow of the chair 
Flitted across into the night. 

And all the casement darken'd there. 

But when at last I dar'd to speak. 

The lanes, you know, were white with May, 
Your ripe lips mov'd not, but your cheek 

Flush'd like the coming of the day; 
And so it was — half-sly, half-shy. 

You would, and would not, little one! 
Although I pleaded tenderly. 

And you and I were all alone. 



THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. 101 

And slowly was m}^ mother brought 

To yield consent to my desh'e: 
She wish'd me happy, but she thought 

I might have look'd a little higher; 
And I was young — too young to wed: 

" Yet must I love her for your sake 5 
Go fetch your Alice here," she said: 

Her eyelid quiver'd as she spake. 

And down 1 went to fetch my bride: 

But, Alice, you were ill at ease ; 
This dress and that, by turns you tried, 

Too fearful that 3'ou should not please. 
I lov'd you better for your fears, 

I knew you could not look but well; 
And dews, that would have fall'n in tears, 

I kiss'd away before they fell, 

I watch'd the little flutterings. 

The doubt vc\y mother would not see; 
She spoke at large of many things. 

And at the last she spoke of me; 
And turning look'd upon your face 

As near this door you sat apart, 
And rose, and, with a silent grace 

Approaching, press'd you heart to heart 

Ah, well — but sing the foolish song 

I gave you, Alice, on the day 
When, arm in arm, we went along, 

A pensive pair, and you were gay 
With bridal flowers — that I may seem, 

As in the nights of old, to lie 
Beside the mill-wheel in the stream, 

While those full chestnuts whisper by. 

It is the miller's daughter, 

And she is grown so dear, so dear, 
That I would be the jewel 

That trembles at her ear : 
For hid in ringlets day and night, 
I'd touch her neck so warm and white. 



102 THE MILLER'S DA UGHTER. 

And I would be the girdle 

About her dainty, dainty waist, 

And her heart would beat against me, 
In sorrow and in rest: 

And I should know if it beat right, 

I'd clasp it round so close and tight. 

And I would be the necklace. 
And all day long to fall and rise 

Upon her balmy bosom, 
With her laughter or her sighs, 

And I would lie so light, so light, 

I scarce should be unclasp'd at night. 

A trifle, sweet! which true love spells — 

True love interprets — right alone. 
His light upon the letter dwells, 

For all the spirit is his own. 
So, if I waste words now^, in truth. 

You must blame Love. His early rage 
Had force to make me rhyme in youth, 

And makes me talk too much in age. 

And now those vivid hours are gone, 

Like mine own life to me thou art, 
Where Past and Present, w^ound in one, 

Do make a garland for the heart: 
So sing that other song I made, 

Half-anger'd with my happy lot. 
The day, when in the chestnut shade 

I found the blue Forget-me-not. 

Love that hath us in the net. 
Can he pass, and we forget.'' 
Many suns arise and set. 
Many a chance the years beget. 
Love the gift is Love the debt. 
Even so. 

Love is hurt with jar and fret. 
Love is made a vague regret. 
Eyes with idle tears are wet. 
Idle habit links us yet. 
What is love? for we forget: 
Ah, no ! no ! 



THE MILLER'S DA UGHTER. 103 

Look thro' mine eyes with thine. True wife, 

Round my true heart thine arms entwine; 
My other dearer Hfe in Hfe, 

Look thro' my very soul with thine! 
Untouch'd with any shade of years, 

May those kind eyes forever dwell! 
They have not shed a many tears, 

Dear eyes, since first I knew them well. 

Yet tears they shed : they had their part 

Of sorrow: for when time was ripe. 
The still affection of the heart 

Became an outward breathing type. 
That into stillness past again, 

And left a want unknown before; 
Although the loss that brought us pain, 

That loss but made us love the more, 

With f^irther lookings on. The kiss. 

The woven arms, seem but to be 
Weak symbols of the settled bliss. 

The comfort, I have found in thee: 
But that God bless thee, dear — who wrought 

Two spirits to one equal mind — 
With blessings beyond hope or thought. 

With blessings which no words can find. 

Arise, and let us wander forth. 

To yon old mill across the wolds; 
For look, the sunset, south and north, 

Winds all the vale in rosy folds. 
And fires your narrow casement glass, 

Touching the sullen pool below: 
On the chalk-hill the bearded grass 

Is dry and dewless. Let us go. 




104 



FATIM. 



FATIMA, 



•^a^.^ 




% LOVE, Love, Love! O withering might! 
O sun, that from thy noonday height 
Shudderest when I strain my sight. 
Throbbing thro' all thy heat and light, 
Lo, falling from my constant mind, 
Lo, parch'd and v^dther'd, deaf and blind, 
I whirl like leaves in roaring wind. 



Last night I wasted hateful hours 
Below the city's eastern towers: 
I thirsted for the brooks, the showers: 
I roll'd among the tender flowers: 

I crush'd them on my breast, my mouth; 
I look'd athwart the burning drouth 
Of that long desert to the south. 

Last night, when some one spoke his name, 
From my swift blood that went and came 
A thousand little shafts of flame 
Were shiver'd in my narrow frame. 
O Love, O fire! once he drew 
With one long kiss my whole soul thro' 
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew. 

Before he mounts the hill, I know 
He cometh quickly : from below 
Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow 
Before him, striking on my brow. 
In my dry brain my spirit soon, 
Down-deepening from swoon to swoon, 
Faints like a dazzl'd morning moon. 



The wind sounds like a silver wire, 
And from beyond the noon a fire 
Is pour'd upon the hills, and nigher 
The skies stoop down in their desire; 
And, isl'd in sudden seas of light. 
My heart, pierc'd thro' with fierce delight. 
Bursts into blossom in his sis:ht. 



CENONE. 



105 



My whole soul waiting silently, 

All naked in a sultr}^ sky, 

Droops blinded with his shining" eye: 

I ivill possess him or will die. 

I will grow round him in his place, 
Grow, live, die looking on his face. 
Die, dying clasp'd in his embrace. 



CENONE, 




HERE lies a vale in Ida, lovelier 
Than all the valleys of Ionian hills. 
The swimming vapor slopes athwart the glen. 
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine, 
And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand 
The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down 
Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars 
The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravine 
In cataract atter cataract to the sea. 
Behind the valley topmost Gargarus 
Stands up and takes the morning: but in front 
The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal 
Troas and Ilion's column'd citadel. 
The crown of Troas. 

Hither came at noon 
Mournful CEnone, wandering forlorn 
Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills. 
Her cheek had lost the rose, and round her neck 
Floated her hair or seem'd to float in rest. 
She, leaning on a fragment t^vin'd with vine. 
Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shade 
Slop'd downward to her seat from the upper cliff. 



" O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, 
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
For now the noonday quiet holds the hill 
The grasshopper is silent in the grass : 
The lizard, with his shadow on the stone. 
Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps. 



106 



CENONE. 



The purple flowers droop: the golden bee 
Is lily-cradl'd: I alone awake. 
My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love, 
My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim. 
And I am all aweary of my life. 




'^r.-'" ^-^c/ 



" O mother Ida, many-fountainVl Ida, 
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
Hear me O earth, hear me O hills, O caves 
That house the cold crown'd snake ! O mountain brooks, 
I am the daughter of a river-god, 
He^r me, for I will speak, and build up all 
My sorrov/ with my song, as yonder walls 
Rose slowly to a music slowly breath'd, 
A cloud that gather'd shape: for it may be 
That, while I speak of it, a little while 
My heart may wander from its deeper woe. 



CENONE. 107 



"O mother Ida, manj^-fountain'd Ida, 
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
I waited underneath the dawning hills. 
Aloft the mountain lawn was dewy-dark, 
And dewy-dark aloft the mountain pine: 
Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris, 
Leading a jet-black goat white-horn'd, white-hoov'd, 
Came up from reedy Simois all alone. 

" O mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
Far-ofF the torrent call'd me from the cleft: 
Far up the solitary morning smote 
The streaks of virgin snow. With down-dropt eyes 
I sat alone: white-breasted like a star 
Fronting the dawn he mov'd; a leopard skin 
Dropp'd from his shoulder, but his sunnv hair 
Cluster'd about his temples like a God's; 
And his cheek brighten'd as the foam-bow brightens 
When the wind blows the foam, and all my heart 
Went forth to embrace him coining ere he came. 

" Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
He smil'd, and opening out his milk-white palm 
Disclos'd a fruit of pure Hesperian gold. 
That smelt ambrosially, and while I look'd 
And listen'd, the full-flowing river of speech 
Came down upon my heart. 

" ' My own OEnone, 
Beautiful-brow'd CEnone, my own soul, 
Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind engrav'n 
*«.For the most fair," would seem to award it thine, 
As lovelier than whatever Oread haunt 
The knolls of Ida, loveliest in all grace 
Of movement, and the charm of married brows.' 

" Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
He prest the blossom of his lips to mine. 
And added, ' This was cast upon the board. 
When all the full-fac'd presence of the Gods 
Rang'd in the halls of Peleus; whereupon 
Rose feud, with question unto ^vhom 't^vere due: 
But ligJit-foot Iris brought it yester-eve. 
Delivering that to me, by common voice 
Elected umpire. Here comes to-day, 



108 CEXOXE. 



Pallas and Aphrodite, claiming each 
This meed of fairest. Thou, \vithm the cave 
Behind yon whispering tuft of oldest pine, 
Mayst ^vell behold them unbeheld, unheard 
Hear all, and see thy Paris judge of Gods.' 

" Dear inother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
It was the deep midnoon: one silvery cloud 
Had lost his ^vav between the pinv sides 
Of this long- o^len. Then to the bower thev came. 
Naked they came to that smooth-swarded bower, 
And at their feet the crocus brake like fire, 
Violet, amaracus, and asphodel. 
Lotos and lilies: and a wind arose, 
And overhead the \vandering ivv and vine, 
This wav and that, in many a \\'\\d festoon 
Ran riot, 2"arlandin2r the ofnarled bousfhs 
With bunch and berrv and flower thro' and thro'. 



'• O mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
On the tree-tops a crested peacock lit. 
And o'er him flow'd a golden cloud, and lean'd 
Upon him, slo\vlv dropping fragrant dew. 
Then first I heard the voice of her, to whom 
Coming thro' Heaven, like a light that grows 
Larsrer and clearer, ^vith one mind the Gods 
Rise up for reverence. She to Paris made 
Proffer of royal power, ample rule 
Unquestion'd, overflowing revenue 
Wherewith to embellish state, ' from many a vale 
And rivcr-sunder'd champaign cloth'd with corn, 
Or labor'd mines undrainable of ore. 
Honor,' she said, ' and homage, tax and toll. 
From man^' an inland town and haven large, 
Mast-thronof'd beneath her shadowino^ citadel 
In 2"lassv bavs amonsr her tallest to^vers.' 



'• O mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
Still she spake on and still she spake of power, 
' Which in all action is the end of all; 
Power titted to the season; wisdom bred 
And throned of wisdom — from all neighboring crown; 
Alliance and allegiance, till thy hand 
Fail from the sceptre-staff. Such boon from me. 



CENONE. 109 



From nie, Heaven's Queen, Paris, to thee king-born, 

A shepherd all thy life but yet king-born, 

Should come most welcome, seeing men, in power 

Only, are likest gods, who have attain'd 

Rest in a happy place and quiet seats 

Above the thunder, ^vith undying bliss. 

In knowledge of their own supremacy.' 

" Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
She ceas'd, and Paris held the costly fruit 
Out at arm's length, so much the thought of power 
Flatter'd his spirit; but Pallas where she stood. 
Somewhat apart, her clear and bared limbs 
O'erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear 
Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold, 
The ^vhile, above, her full and earnest eve 
Over her snow-cold breast and angry cheek 
Kept watch, waiting decision, made reply. 

" ' Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, 
These three alone lead life to sovereign power. 
Yet not for power (power of herself 
Would come uncall'd for), but to live bv law. 
Acting the law Ave live by wdthout fear; 
And, because right is right, to follow right 
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.' 

" Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
Again she said : ' I woo thee not with gifts. 
Sequel of guerdon could not alter me 
To fairer. Judge thou me by what I am. 
So shalt thou find me fairest. 

Yet, indeed. 
If gazing on divinity disrob'd 
Thy mortal eyes are frail to judge of fair, 
Unbiass'd by self-profit, oh I rest thee sure 
That I should love thee well and cleave to thee, 
So that my vigor, wedded to thy blood, 
Shall strike within thy pulse, like a God's, 
To push thee forward thro' a life of shocks, 
Dangers, and deeds, until endurance grow 
Sinew'd with action, and the full-grown will, 
Circled thro' all experiences, pure law, 
Commeasure perfect freedom.' 



110 CBNOME. 



" Here she ceas'd, 
And Paris ponder'd, and I cried, ' O Paris, 
Give it to Pallas! ' but he heard me not. 
Or hearing would not hear me, woe is me! 

" O mother Ida, manv-fountain'd Ida, 
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
Idalian Aphrodite beautiful. 

Fresh as the foam, new-bath'd in Paphian wells, 
With rosy slender fingers backward drew 
From her warm brows and bosom her deep hair 
Ambrosial, golden round her lucid throat 
And shoulder: from the violets her light foot 
Shone rosy-white, and o'er her rounded form 
Between the shadows of the vine bunches 
Floated the glovring sunlights, as she mov'd. 

" Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes. 
The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh 
Half-whisper'd in his ear, ' I promise thee 
Tne fairest and most loving wife in Greece.' 
She spoke and laugh'd : I shut my sight for fear; 
But ^vhen I look'd, Paris had rais'd his arm, 
And I beheld great Here's angry eyes, 
As she withdrew into the golden cloud, 
And I was left alone within the bower : 
And from that time to this I am alone. 
And I shall be alone until I die. 

" Yet, mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
Fairest — why fairest wife? Am I not fair.? 
My love hath told me so a thousand times. 
Methinks I must be fair, for yesterday, 
When I pass'd by, a wild and wanton pard, 
E3^ed like the evening star, with playful tail 
Crouch'd fawning in the weed. Most loving is she.'* 
Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms 
Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest 
Close, close to thine in that quick-falling dew 
Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains 
Flash in the pools of whirling Simois. 



CENONE. 111 



" O mother, hear me yet before I die. 
They came, the^^ cut away my tallest pines, 
' My dark tall pines, that plum'd the craggy ledge 
High over the blue gorge, and all between 
The snowy peak and snow-white cataract 
Foster'd the callow eaglet — from beneath 
Whose thick mysterious bows in the dark morn 
The panther's roar came muffl'd, while I sat 
Low in the valley. Never, never more 
Shall lone CEnone see the morning mist 
Sweep thro' them; never see them overlaid 
With narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud. 
Between the loud stream and the trembling stars. 

" O mother, hear me yet before I die. 
I wish that somewhere in the rum'd folds. 
Among the fragments tumbl'd from the glens. 
Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her. 
The Abominable, that uninvited came 
Into the fair Peleian banquet-hall. 
And cast the golden fruit upon the board, 
And bred this change; that I might speak my mind, 
And tell her to her face how much I hate 
Her presence, hated both of Gods and men. 

" O mother, hear me yet before I die. 
Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times; 
In this green valley, under this green hill, 
Ev'n on this hand, and sitting on this stone? 
Seal'd it with kisses? water'd it with tears? 
O happy tears, and how unlike to these ! 
O happy Heaven, how canst thou see my face ? 
O happy earth, how canst thou bear my weight? 

death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud. 
There are enough unhappy on this earth. 
Pass by the happy souls, that love to live: 

1 pray thee, pass before my light of life. 
And shadow all my soul, that I may die. 
Thou weighest heavy on the heart within, 
Weigh heavy on my eyelids: let me die. 

" O mother, hear me yet before I die. 
I will not die alone, for fiery thoughts 
Do shape themselves within me, more and more, 



112 



CENONE. 



Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear 
Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hills, 
Like footsteps upon wool. I dimly see 
My far-oft doubtful purpose, as a mother 
Conjectures of the features of her child 
Ere it is born : a child ! — a shudder coines 
Across me : never child be borne of me, 
Unblest, to vex me with his father's eyes ! 

"O mothei', hear me yet before I die. 
Hear me, O earth. I will not die alone, 
Lest their shrill happy laughter come to me 
Walking the cold and starless road of Death 
Uncomforted, leaving my ancient love 
With the Greek woman. I will rise and go 
Down into Troy, and ere the stars come forth 
Talk with the wild Cassandra, for she says 
A fire dances before her, and a sound 
Rings ever in her ears of armed men. 
What .this may be I know not, but I know 
That, wheresoe'er I am by night and day, 
All earth and air seem onlv burning fire. 





" Then to the bower they came. 
Naked they came to that smooth-swarded bower, 
And at their feet the crocus brake like fire." 

See fage io8. 



THE SISTERS. 



113 



777^ SISTERS. 




E were two daughters of one race : 
She was the fairest in the face : 

The wind is blowing- in turret and tree. 
Tiiey were together, and she fell; 
Therefore revenge became me well; 

O the Earl was fair to see! 



She died: she went to burning- flame: 
e mix'd her ancient blood with shame. 
The wind is howling in turret and tree. 

Whole weeks and months, and earl}^ and late, 

To win his love I lay in wait: 
O the Earl was fair to see! 



I made a feast; I bade him come; 
I won his love, I brought him home. 

The wind is roaring in turret and tree. 
And after supper, on a bed, 
Upon my lap he laid his head : 

O the Earl was fair to see! 



I kiss'd his eyelids into rest: 

His ruddy cheek upon my breast. 

The wind is raging in turret and tree. 
I hated him with the hate of hell, 
But I lov'd his beauty passing well. 

O the Earl was fair to see! 



I rose up in the silent night: 

I made my dagger sharp and bright. 

The wind is raving in turret and tree. 
As half-asleep his breath he drew, 
Three times I stabb'd him thro' and thro' 

O the Earl was fair to see! 



114 



TO 



I curl'd and comb'd his comely head, 
He looked so grand when he was dead. 

The wind is blowing in turret and tree. 
I wrapt his body in the sheet, 
And laid him at his mother's feet 

O the Earl \vas fair to see! 



:^^5^=^ 



TO 




WITH THE FOLLOWING POEM. 

SEND you here a sort of allegory, 

(For you will understand it) of a soul, 

A sinful soul possess'd of many gifts, 
A spacious garden full of flowering weeds, 
A glorious Devil, large in heart and brain. 
That did love Beauty, only (Beauty seen 
In all varieties of mould and mind,) 
And Knowledge for its Beauty; or if Good, 
Good onl}' for its beauty, seeing not 
That Beauty, Good, and Knowledge are three sisters 
That dote upon each other, friends to man, 
Living together under the same roof. 
And never can be sunder'd without tears. 
And he that shuts Love out, in turn shall be 
Shut out from Love, and on her threshold lie 
Howling in outer darkness. Not for this 
Was common clay ta'en from the common earth. 
Moulded by God, and temper'd with the tears 
Of angels to the perfect shape of man. 




THE PALACE OF ART. 



115 



THE PALACE OE ART, 




BUILT my soul a lordly pleasure-house, 

Wherein at ease for aye to dwell. 
I said, " O Soul, make merry and carouse, 
Dear Soul, for all is well." 

A huge crag -platform, smooth as burnish'd brass^ 

I chose. The ranged ramparts bright 
From level meadow-bases of deep grass 
Suddenly scal'd the light. 



Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf 

The rock rose clear, or winding stair. 
My soul would live alone unto herself 
In her high palace there. 

And " while the world runs round and round," I said, 
" Reign thou apart, a quiet king. 
Still as, while Saturn whirls, his steadfast shade 
Sleeps on his luminous ring." 



To which my soul made answer readily: 

" Trust me, in bliss I shall abide 
In this great mansion, that is built for me,- 
So royal-rich and wide." 



Four courts I made, East, West and South and North, 

In each a squared lawn, wherefrom 
The golden gorge of dragons spouted forth 
A flood of fountain-foam. 



116 THE PALACE OF ART. 



And round the cool green courts there ran a row 

Of cloisters, branch'd like mighty woods, 
Echoing all night to that sonorous flow 
Of spouted fountain-floods. 

And round the roofs a gilded gallery 

That lent broad verge to distant lands, 
Far as the wild swan wings, to where the sky 
Dipt down to sea and sands. 

From those four jets four currents in one swell 

Across the mountain stream'd below 
In misty folds, that floating as they fell 
Lit up a torrent-bow. 

And high on every peak a statue seem'd 

To hang on tiptoe, tossing up 
A cloud of incense of all odor steam'd 
From out a golden cup. 

So that she thought, "And who shall gaze upon 

My palace with unblinded eyes, 
While this great bow will waver in the sun, 
And that sweet incense rise? " 

For that sweet incense rose and never fail'd, 
And, while day sank or mounted higher, 
The light aerial gallery, golden railed. 
Burnt like a fringe of fire. 

Likewise the deep-set windows, stain'd and trac'd, 

Would seem slow-flaming crimson fires 
From shadow'd grots of arches interlac'd, 
And tipt with frost-like spires. 



Full of long-sounding corridors it was. 

That over-vaulted grateful gloom. 
Thro' which the livelong day my soul did pass, 
Well-pleas'd, from room to room. 



THE PALACE OF ART. 



117 



Full of great rooms and small the palace stood, 

All various, each a perfect whole 
From living Nature, fit for every mood 
And change of my still soul. 

For some were hung with arras green and blue. 

Showing a gaudy summer-morn. 
Where w^ith pufF'd cheek the belted hunter blew 
His wreathed bugle horn. 

One seem'd all dark and red, — a tract of sand, 

And some one pacing there alone, 
Who pac'd forever in a glimmering land, 
Lit with a low large moon. 




One show'd an iron coast and angry waves. 

Ypu seem'd to hear them climb and fall 
And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves, 
Beneath the wi ndv wall. 



118 THE PALACE OF ART. 



And one, a full-fed river winding slow 

By herds upon an endless plain, 
The ragged rims of thunder brooding low, 
With shado^^^-streaks of rain. 



And one, the reapers at their sultry toil, 

In fronc they bound the sheaves. Behind 
Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil, 
And hoary to the w^ind. 

And one, a foreground black with stones and slags, 

Beyond a line of heights, and higher 
All barr'd with long white cloud the scornful crags. 
And highest, snow and fire. 

And one, an English home, — gray twilight pour'd 

On dewey pastures, dcAvey trees. 
Softer than sleep, — all things in order stored, 
A haunt of ancient Peace. 

Nor these alone, but every landscape fair, 

As fit for every mood of mind. 
Or gay, or grave, or sweet, or stern, was there. 
Not less than truth desig^n'd. 



Or the maid-mother by a crucifix, 

In tracts of pasture sunny-warm. 
Beneath branch-work of costly sardonyx 
Sat smiling, babe in arm. 

Or in a clear-wall'd city on the sea, 

Near gilded organ-pipes, her hair 
Wound with white roses, slept St. Cecily; 
An angel looked at her. 

Or thronging all one porch of Paradise, 

A group of Houris bow'd to see 
The dying Islamite, with hands and eyes 
That said, ' We wait for thee.' 



THE PALACE OF ART. 



119 




Or mythic Uther's deeply-wounded son 
In some fair space of sloping- greens 
Lay, dozing in the vale of Avalon, 

And watch'd by weeping queens. 

Or hollowing one hand 'gainst his ear, 

To list a foot-fall, ere he saw 
The wood-nymph, stay'd the Ausonian king to hear 
Of wisdom and of law. 



Or over hills with peaky tops engrail'd, 

And many a tract of palm and rice, 
The throne of Indian Cam a slowly sail'd 
A summer fann'd with spice. 



Or sweet Europa's mantle blew unclasp'd. 
From off her shoulder backward borne : 
From one hand droop'd a crocus: one hand grasp'd 
The mild bull's golden horn. 



120 THE PALACE OF ART. 



Or else flush'd Ganymede, his rosy thigh 

Half-buried in the eagle's down, 
Sole as a flying star shot thro' the sky 
Above the piilar'd town. 

Nor these alone: but every legend fair 
Which the supreme Caucasian mind 
Carv'd out of Nature for itself, was there, 
Not less than life, design'd. 



Then in the towers I plac'd great bells that swung, 

Mov'd of themselves, with silver sound : 
And with choice paintings of wise men I hung 
The royal dais round. 

For there was Milton like a seraph strong. 
Beside him Shakespeare bland and mild; 
And there the ^vorld-worn Dante grasp'd his song, 
And somewhat grimly smiled. 

And there the Ionian father of the rest; 

A million wrinkles carv'd his skin; 
A hundred winters snow'd upon his breast, 
From cheek and throat and chin. 

Above, the fair hall-ceiHng stately-set 

Many an arch high up did lift, 
And angels rising and descending met 
With interchange of gift. 

Below was all mosaic choicely plann'd 

With cycles of the huinan tale 
Of this wide world, the times of every land 
So wrought, they v^ill not fail. 

The people here, a beast of burden slow, 

Toil'd onward, prick'd with goads and stings : 
Here play'd a tiger, rolling to and fro 
The heads and crowns of kings; 




*» And one, the reapers at their sultry toil." 

See f age ii8. 



I 



THE PALACE OE ART. 121 



Here rose an athlete, strong to break or bind 

All force in bonds that might endure, 
And here once more like some sick man declin'd. 
And trusted any cure. 

But over these she trod: and those great bells 

Began to chime. Slie took her throne: 
She sat betwixt the shining Oriels, 
To sing her songs alone. 

And thro' the topmost Oriels' color'd flame 

Two godlike faces gazed below; 
Plato the wise, and large-brow'd Verulam, 
The first of those who know. 



And all those names, that in their motion were 

Full-welling fountain-heads of change. 
Betwixt the slender shafts were blazon'd fair 
In diverse raiment strange : 

'Thro' which the lights, rose, amber, emerald, blue, 

Flush'd in her temples and her eyes, 
And from her lips, as morn from Memnon, drew 
Rivers of melodies. 

No nightingaJe delighteth to prolong 

Her low preamble all alone, 
jSIore than my soul to hear her echo'd song 
Throb thro' the ribbed stone; 

Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth, 

Joying to feel herself alive, 
Lord over nature, lord of the visible earth, 
Lord of the senses five; 

Communing with herself: "All these are mine, 

And let the world have peace or wars 
'Tis one to me." She — when young night divine 
Crown'd dying day with stars, 

Making sweet close of his delicious toils — 
Lit light in wreaths and anadems, 



122 THE PALACE OF ART. 



And pure quintessences of precious oils 
In hollow'd moons of gems, 

To mimic heaven; and clapt her hands and cried: 

" I marvel if my still delight 
In this great house so royal-rich, and wide, 
Be flatter'd to the height. 

"O all things fair to sate my various eyes! 

shapes and hues that please me well! 
O silent faces of the Great and Wise, 

My Gods, with whom I dwell! 

" O God-like isolation which art mine, 

1 can but count thee perfect gain. 

What tune I watch the dark'ning droves of swine 
That range on yonder plain. 

" In filthy sloughs they roll a prurient skin. 

They graze and wallow, breed and sleep; 
And oft some brainless devil enters in. 
And drives them to the deep." 

Then of the moral instinct would she prate, 

And of the rising from the dead. 
As hers by right of full-accomplish'd Fate; 
And at the last she said : 



*' I take possession of man's mind and deed, 

I care not what the sects may brawl. 
I sit as God holding no form of creed. 
But contemplating all." 



Full oft the riddle of the painful earth 

Flash'd thro' her as she sat alone. 
Yet not the less she held her solemn mirth, 
And intellectual throne. 



THE PALACE OF ART. 123 



And so she throve and prosper'd: so three years 

She prosper'd : on the fourth she fell, 
Like Herod, when the shout was in his ears, 
Struck thro' with pangs of hell. 

Lest she should fall and perish utterly, 

God, before whom ever lie bare 
The abysmal deeps of Personality, 
Plagued her with sore despair. 

When she would think, where'er she turn'd her sight, 

The airy hand confusion wrought, 

Wiote "Mene, mene," and divided quite 

The kingdom of her thought. 

Deep dread and loathing of her solitude 
Fell on her, from which mood v^as born 

Scorn of herself; again, from out that mood 
Laughter at her self-scorn. 

"What! is not this my place of strength," she said, 

" My spacious mansion built for me. 
Whereof the strong foundation-stones were laid 
Since my first memory ? " 

But in dark corners of her palace stood 

Uncertain shapes; and unawares 
On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood, 

And horrible nightmares. 

And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame. 

And, with dim fretted foreheads all, 
On corpses three months old, at noon she came, 
That stood against the wall. 

A spot of dull stagnation, without light 

Or power of movement, seem'd my soul, 
'Mid onward-sloping motions infinite 
Making for one sure goal. 

A still salt pool, lock'd in with bars of sand; 
Left on the shore: that hears all nig^ht 



124 THE PALACE OF ART. 



The plunging seas draw backw^ard from the land 
Then- moon-led waters white. 

A star that with the choral starry dance 

Join'd not, but stood, and standing saw 
The hollow orb of moving Circumstance 
RoU'd round by one fix'd law. 

Back on herself her serpent pride had curled. 

" No voice," she shriek'd in that lone hall, 
" No voice breaks thro' the stillness of this world: 
One deep, deep silence all!" 

She, mould'ring with the dull earth's mould'ring sod, 

Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame, 
Lay there exiled from eternal God, 
Lost to her place and name; 

And death and life she hated equally. 

And nothing saw, for her despair, 
But dreadful time, dreadful eternity. 
No comfort anyv/here; 

Remaining utterly confus'd with fears, 
And ever worse with growing time, 
And ever unreliev'd by dismal tears. 
And all alone in crime: 

.Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt round 

With blackness as a solid wall, 
Far off she seem'd to hear the dully sound 
Of human footsteps fall. 

As in strange lands a traveller walking slow, 

In doubt and great perplexity, 
A little before moon-rise hears the low 
Moan of an unknown sea. 

And knows not if it be thunder or a sound 
Of rocks thrown down, or one deep cry 
Of great wild beasts; then thinketh, " I have found 
A new land, but I die." 



LADT CLARA VERB DE VERE. 



125 



She howl'd aloud, " I am on fire within, 

There comes no murmur of reply. 
What is it that will take away my sin, 
And save me lest I die? " 



So when four years were wholly finished, 

She threw her royal robes away, 
" Make me a cottage in the vale," she said, 

" Where I may mourn and pray." 

" Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are 

So' lightly, beautifully built: 
Perchance I may return with others there 
When I have purg'd my guilt." 



— ^:^^^);g-<^p:5< 



LADT CLARA VERE DE VERE. 



ADY Clara Vere de Vere, 

Of me you shall not win renown: 
You thought to break a country heart 
For pasthne, ere you went to town. 
At me you smil'd, but unbeguil'd 
V. w .><^ S I saw the snare, and I retir'd: 
'j^ L«j - The daughter of a hundred Earls 
You are not one to be desired. 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

I know you proud to bear your name. 
Your pride is yet no mate for mine, 

Too proud to care from whence I came. 

Nor would I break for your sweet sake 
A heart that dotes on truer charms. 

A simple maiden in her flower 
Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms. 




126 LADT CLARA VERB DE VERE. 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

Some meeker pupil you must find, 
For were you queen of all that is, 

I could not stoop to such a mind. 
You sought to prove how I could love, 

And my disdain is my reply. 
The lion on your old stone gates 

Is not more cold to 3'ou than I. 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

You put strange memories in my head. 
Not thrice your branching limes have blown 

Since I beheld young Laurence dead. 
Oh your sweet eyes, your lo\v replies : 

A great enchantress you may be; 
But there vs^as that across his throat 

Which you had hardly cared to see. 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

When thus he met his mother's view, 
She had the passions of her kind. 

She spake some certain truths of you. 
Indeed I heard one bitter ^vord 

That scarce is fit for you to hear; 

Her manners had not that repose 
Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere. 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

There stands a spectre in vour hall: 
The guilt of blood is at your door: 

You chang'd a wholesome heart to gall. 
You held your course without remorse, 

To make hnn trust his modest worth. 
And, last, you fix'd a vacant stare. 

And slew him with your noble birth. 

Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, 

From yon blue heavens above us bent 
The grand old gardener and his wife 

Smile at the claims of long descent. 
Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 

'Tis only noble to he good. 
Kind hearts are more than coronets, 

And simple faith than Norman blood. 



LADT CLARA VERB DE VERE. 



127 




I know you, Clara Vere de Vere : 

You pine among your halls and towers 
The languid light of your proud eyes 

Is wearied of the rolling hours. 
In glowing health, with boundless wealth. 

But sickening of a vague disease, 
You know so ill to deal with tiine. 

You needs must play such pranks as these. 



Clara, Clara Vere de Vere, 

If Time be heavy on your hands. 
Are there no beggars at 3^our gate, 

Nor any poor about your lands? 
Oh! teach the orphan-boy to read, 

Or teach the orphan -girl to sew. 
Pray Heaven for a human heart. 

And let the foolish yeoman go. 



128 



THE MAT QUEEN. 




THE MAY QUEEN. 




OU must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear; 
^ To-morrow 'ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-3^ear; 
Of all the glad New-year, mother, the maddest jnerriest day; 
For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. 



There's many a black, black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine 
There's Margaret and Mary, there's Kate and Caroline: 
But none so fair as little Alice in all the land they sa}-. 
So I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. 



I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never ^vake, 

If you do not call me loud when the day begins to break: 

But I must gather knots of flowers, and buds and garlands ga}', 

For I'm to be Queen o' the Miiy, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. 

As I came up the valley whom think ye should I see, 

But Robin leanins: on the bridg^e beneath the hazel-tree? 

He thought of that sharp look, mother, I gave him yesterday, — ■ 

But I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. 

He thought T was a ghost, mother, for I was all in white. 

And I ran by him without speaking, like a flash of light. 

They call me cruel-hearted, but I care not what they say. 

For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. 



They say he's dying all for love, but that can never be: 

They say his heart is breaking, mother — what is that to me ? 

There's many a bolder lad 'ill woo me any summer day. 

And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. 



THE MAT QUEEN. 



129 



Little Effie shall go with me to-morrow to the green, 

And you'll be there, too, mother, to see me made the Queen; 

For the shepherd lads on every side 'ill come from far away. 

And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. 

The honeysuckle round the porch has wov'n Its wavy bowers. 
And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint sweet cuckoo-flowers; 
And the wild marsh-marigold shines like fire in swamps and hollows gray. 
And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. 

The night-winds come and go, mother, upon the meadow-grass, • 
And the happy stars above them seem to brighten as they pass; 
There will not be a drop of rain the whole of the livelong day. 
And I'm to be Queen o' the IMny, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May, 

All the valley, mother, 'ill be fresh and green and still. 

And the cowslip and the crowfoot are ever all the hill, 

And the rivulet in the flowery dale 'ill merrily glance and play. 

For I'm to be Queen o' the Maj^, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. 




So 3'ou must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear. 
To-morrow 'ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-year; 
To-morrow 'ill be of all the year the maddest merriest day. 
For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. 
9 



130 



THE MAT QUEEN. 



NEW YEARS' EVE. 




F you're waking, call me early, call me early, mother dear, 
For I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year. 
It is the last New-year that I shall ever see. 
Then you may lay me low i' the mould and think no more of me. 



To-night I saw the sun set: he set and left behind 
The good old year, the dear old time, and all my peace of mind; 
And the New-year's coming up, mother, but I shall never see 
The blossom on the blackthorn, the leaf upon the tree. 




Last May we made a crown of flowers: we had a merry day; 
Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me Queen of May; 
And we danced about the may-pole and in the hazel copse. 
Till Charles's Wain came out above the tall white chimney-tops. 



There's not a flower on all the hills ; the frost is on the pane : 
I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again: 
I wish the ^now would melt and the sun come out on high • 
I long to see a flower so before the day I die. 



THE MAT QUEEN. 131 



The building rook 'ill caw from the windy tall elm-tree, 

And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea, 

And the sw^allovs^ 'ill come back again with summer o'er the wave, 

But I shall lie alone, mother, within the m.ouldering grave. 

Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of mine. 
In the early early morning the summer sun 'ill shine. 
Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill. 
When you are v^arm-asleep, mother, and all the world is still. 

When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light. 
You'll never see me more in the long gray fields at night; 
When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool 
On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool. 

You'll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade. 
And you'll come sometimes and see me where I am lowly laid. 
I shall not forget you mother, I shall hear you when 3'ou pass, 
With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass. 

I have been wild and w^ayward, but you'll forgive me now; 
You'll kiss me, my ovs^n mother, and forgive me ere I go; 
Nay, nay, you must not weep, nor let your grief be wild. 
You should not fret for me, mother, you have another child. 

If I can I'll come again, mother, from out my resting-place; 
Tho' you'll not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face; 
Tho' I cannot speak a word, I shall hearken what you say. 
And be often, often with you when you think I'm far away. 

Good-night, good-night, when I have said good-night forevermore. 
And you see me cai'ried out from the threshold of the door; 
Don't let Effie come to see me till my grave be growing green; 
She'll be a better child to you than ever I have been. 

She'll find my garden tools upon the granary floor; 
Let her take 'em: the}^ are hers: I shall never garden more: 
But tell her, when I'm gone, to train the rush-bush that I set 
About the parlor-window and the box of mignonette. 

Good-night, svv^eet mother; call me before the day is born, 
All night I lie awake, but I fall asleep at morn; 
But I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year, 
So, if you're waking, call me, call me early, mother dear. 



132 



THE MAT QUEEN. 



CONCLUSION. 




THOUGHT to pass away before, and yet alive I am; 
And In the fields all round I hear the bleating of the lamb. 
How sadly, I remember, rose the mxorning of the year! 
To die before the snowdrop came, and now the violet's here. 



O sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the skies, 
And sweeter is the young lainb's voice to me that cannot rise, 
And sweet is all the land about, and all the flowers that blow, 
And sweeter far is death than life to me that Ions: to oro. 



It seem'd so hard at first, mother, to leave the blessed sun, 



And now it seems as hard to stav, iind vet Hi 



ill be d( 



But still I think it can't be long before I find release; 

And that good man, the clergyman, has told me words of peace. 

O blessings on his kindly voice and on his silver hair! 

And blessings on his whole life long, until he ineet ine there! 

blessings on his kindly heart and on his silver head ! 

A thousand times I blest him, as he knelt beside my bed. 

He taught me all the mercy, for he show'd me all the sin. 
Nov\^, tlio' mv lamp ^vas lighted late, there's One will let ine in; 
Nor would I now be well, mother again, if that could be, 
Por my desire is but to pass to Him that died for me. 

1 did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the death-watch beat. 
There came a sweeter token when the night and morning meet; 
But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hand in mine, 
And Effie on the other side, and I will tell the sign. 



All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels call; 
It^vas when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all; 
The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll, 
And in the wild March-morning I heard them call my soul. 



THE MAT QUEEN. 



133 




JFor lying broad awake I thought of you and Effie dear; 
1 saw you sitting in the house, and I no longer here; 
With all my strength I pray'd for both, and so I felt resign'd 
And up the valley came a swell of music on the wind. 

I thought that it was fancy, and I listen'd in my bed, 
And then did something speak to me — I know not what was said; 
For great delight and shuddering took hold of all my mind, 
And up the valley came again the music on the wind. 

But you were sleeping: and I said, "It's not for them: it's mine." 
And if it comes three times, I thought, I take it for a sign. i 

And once again it came, and close beside the window-bars, 
Then seem'd to ^o right up to Heaven and die among the stars. 



So now I think my time is near. I trust it is. I know 
The blessed music went that "way my soul will have to go. 
And for myself, indeed, I care not if I go to-day. 
But, Effie, you must comfort her when I am past away. 



134 



THE MAT QL'EEN 



And say to Robin a kind \vord, and tell hini not to fret ; 
There's many \vorthier than I, \vould make him happy yet. 
If I had Hved — I cannot tell — I might have been his wife; 
But all these things have ceased to be, with mv desire of life. 

O look! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow; 

He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I kno\v. 

And there I move no longer now, and there his light may shine — 

Wild flowers in the valley for other hands than mine. 

O sweet and strange It seems to me that ere this day is done 
The voice, that now is speaking, may be beyond the sun — 
Forever and fore^'er with those just souls and true — 
And what Is life, that we should moan? ^vhy make we such ado? 

Forever and forever, all In a blessed home — 

And there to wait a little while till you and Effie come — 

To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast — 

And the ^vicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. 




THE LOTOS-EATERS. 



135 





♦v ^ ^ 



THE LOTOS-EATERS. 



OURAGE!" he said, and pointed toward the land, 
__^^^_^^ " This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon." 
1^*^ Iri the afternoon they came unto a land 
In w^hich it seemed al^vays afternoon. 



n 



All round the coast the languid air did swoon, 
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream. 
FuU-fac'd above the valley stood the moon ; 
And like a dow^nward smoke the slender stream 
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem. 



136 



THE LOTOS-EATERS. 



A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke, 

Slow-droppmg veils of thinnest lawn, did go; 

And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke, 

Rolling a slumberous sheet of foam below. 

They saw the gleaming river seaward flow 

From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops, 

Three silent pinnacles of aged snow, 

Stood sunset-flush'd : and, dew'd with showery drops^ 

Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse. 







The charmed sunset linger'd low adovs^n 

In the red West: thro' mountain clefts the dale 

Was seen far inland, and the yellow down 

Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale 

And meadow, set ^vith slender galingale: 

A land where all things always seem'd the samel 

And round about the keel with faces pale. 

Dark faces pale against that rosy flame, 

The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came. 



Branches they bore of that enchanted stem. 

Laden ^nth flower and fruit, whereof they gave 

To each, but whoso did receive of them. 

And taste, to him the gushing of the wave 

Far, far away did seem to mourn and rave 

On alien shores; and if his fellow spake, 

His voice was thin, as voices from the grave; 

And deep asleep he seem'd, 3^et all awake, 

And music in his ears his beating heart did make. 



THE LOTOS-EATERS. 137 




They sat them down upon the yellow sand, 
Between the sun and moon upon the shore; 
And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland, 
Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore 
Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar^ 
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam. 
Then some one said, " We will return no more"; 
And all at once they sang, " Our island home 
Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam." 



CHORTC SONG. 



■HERE is sweet music here that softer falls 
Than petals from blown roses on the grass. 
Or night-dews on still waters between walls 
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass; 
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, 
Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes : 
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies. 
Here are cool mosses deep. 
And thro' the moss the ivies creep. 
And in the stream the long-leav'd flowers weep. 
And from tlie craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep. 

Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness. 

And utterl}^ consum'd with sharp distress. 

While all things else have rest from weariness? 

All things have rest: why should we toil alone. 

We only toil, who are the first of things. 

And make perpetual moan. 

Still from one sorrow to another thrown: 

Nor ever fold our wings. 

And cease from wanderings. 

Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm ; 

Nor hearken what the inner spirit sings, 

" There is no joy but calm! " 

Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things? 

Lo! in the middle of the wood, 
The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud 
With winds upon the branch, and there 
Grows green and broad, and takes no care, 



138 THE LOTOS-EATERS. 



Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon 

Nightly dew-fed ; and turning yellow 

Falls, and floats adown the air. 

Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light, 

The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow, 

Drops in a silent autumn night. 

All its allotted length of days. 

The flower ripens in its place. 

Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil 

Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil. 

Hateful is the dark-blue sky, 

Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea. 

Death is the end of life; ah, why 

Should life all labor be? 

Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast. 

And in a little while our lips are dumb. 

Let us alone. What is it that will last? 

All things are taken from us, and become 

Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past. 

Let us alone. What pleasure can we have 

To vv^ar with evil? Is there any peace 

In ever climbing up the climbing wave? 

All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave 

In silence; ripen, fall and cease: 

Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease. 

How sweet it were, hearing the downv^ard stream, 

With half-shut eyes ever to seem 

Falling asleep in a half-dream! 

To dream and dream, like yonder amber light. 

Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height; 

To hear each other's w^hisper'd speech; 

Eating the Lotos day by day. 

To watch the crisping ripples on the beach. 

And tender curving lines of creamy spray; 

To lend our hearts and spirits wholly 

To the influence of mild-minded melancholy; 

To muse and brood and live again in memory. 

With those old faces of our infancy 

Heap'd over with a mound of grass. 

Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass! 

Dear is the memory of our wedded lives. 
And dear the last embraces of our wives 



THE LOTOS-EATERS. 139 



And their warm tears ; but all hath sufFer'd change ; 

For surely now our household hearths are cold : 

Our sons inherit us: our looks are strangfe: 

And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy. 

Or else the island princes, over-bold 

Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings 

Before them of the ten years' war in Troy, 

And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things. 

Is there confusion in the little isle ? 

Let what is broken so remain. 

The Gods are hard to reconcile: 

Tis hard to settle order once again. 

There is confusion worse than death, 

Trouble on trouble, pain on pain. 

Long labor unto aged breath, 

Sore task to hearts worn out with many wars 

And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars. 

But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly, 

How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly) 

With half-dropt eyelids still. 

Beneath a heaven dark and holy. 

To watch the long bright river drawing slowly 

His waters from the purple hill — 

To hear the dewy echoes calling 

From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine — 

To watch the emerald-color'd water falling 

Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine! 

Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine. 

Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath the pine. 

The Lotos blooms below the barren peak: 

The Lotos blows by every winding creek : 

All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone: 

Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone 

Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is 

blown. 
We have iiad enough of action, and of motion we. 
Roll d to starboard, roU'd to larboard, when the surge was 

seething free. 
Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam -fountains in 

on the sea. 
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind. 
In the hollow Lotos-land to live, and lie reclin'd 
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind. 



140 



THE LOTOS-EATERS. 



For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd 

Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lighty curl'd 

Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world; 

Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, 

Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery 

sands. 
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and pray- 
ing hands. 
But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song 
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong, 
Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong; 
Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil, 
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil, 
vStoring yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil; 
Till they perish and they suffer — some, 'tis whisper'd — down in heli 
Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell. 
Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel. 
Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore 
Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; 
O rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more. 




A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 



14] 



A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 




READ, before my eyelids dropt their shade, 

" The Legend of Good Wome?t^^'' long ago 
Sung by the morning star of song, who made 
His music heard below ; 

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath 
Preluded those melodious bursts that fill 

The spacious times of great Elizabeth 
With sounds that echo still. 



And, for a while, the knowledge of his art 

Held me above the subject, as strong gales 

Hold swollen, clouds from raining, tho' my heart, 
Brimful of those wild tales, 

Charg'd both mine eyes with tears. In every land 

I saw, wherever light illumineth. 
Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand 

The downward slope to death. 



Those far-renowned brides of ancient song 

Peopl'd the hollow dark, like burning stars. 

And I heard sounds of insult, shame, and wrong. 
And trumpets blown for wars; 

And clattering flints batter'd with clanging hoofs; 

And I saw crowds in column'd sanctuaries; 
And forms that pass'd at windows and on roofs 

Of marble palaces; 



Corpses across the threshold ; heroes tall 
Dislodging pinnacle and parapet 

Upon the tortoise creeping to the wall ; 
Lances in ambush set: 



142 



A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 



And high shrine-doors burst thro' with heated blasts 
Tliat run before the fluttering tongues of fire; 

White surf wind-scatter'd over sails and masts, 
And ever climbing higher; 

Squadrons and squares of men in brazen plates, 
Scaffolds, still sheets of vs^ater, divers woes. 

Ranges of glimmering vaults with iron grates, 
And hush'd seraglios. 




So shape chas'd shape as swift as, when to land 

Bluster the winds and tides the self-same way, 

Crisp foam -flakes scud along the level sand. 
Torn from the fringe of spray. 

I started once, or seem'd to start in pain, 

Resolv'd on noble things, and strove to speak, 

As when a great thought strikes along the brain, 
And flushes all the cheek. 

And once my arm was lifted to hew down 
A cavalier from off his saddle-bow, 

That bore a lady from a leaguer'd town; 
And then, I know not hov/, 



All those sharp fancies by down-lapsing thought 

Stream'd onward, lost their edges, and did creep, 

Roll'd on each other, rounded, smooth'd, and brought 
Into the gulfs of sleep. 



A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 148 

At last methought that I had wander'd far 

In an old wood : fresh wash'd in coolest dew, 

The maiden splendors of the morning star 
Shook in the steadfast blue. 

Enormous elm-tree boles did stoop and lean 

Upon the dusky brushwood underneath 
Their broad curv'd branches, fledged with clearest green, 

New from its silken sheath. 

The dim red morn had died, her journey done, 

And with dead lips smil'd at the twilight plain, 

Half-fall'n across the threshold of the sun, 
Never to rise again. 

There was no motion in the dumb dead air, 

Not any song of bird or sound of rill; 
Gross darkness of the inner sepulchre 

Is not so deadly still 

As that wide forest. Growths of jasmine turn'd 

Their humid arms festooning tree to tree, 
And at the root thro' lush green grasses burn'd 

The red anemone. 



I knew the flowers, I knew the leaves, I knew 
The tearful glimmer of the languid dawn 

On those long, rank, dark wood-walks drench'd in dew, 
Leading- from lawn to lawn. 



The smell of violets, hidden in the green, 

Pour'd back into my empty soul and frame 

The times when I remember to have been 
Joyful and free from blame. 

And from within me a clear under-tone 

Thrill'd thro' mine ears in that unblissfuU clime, 
" Pass freely thro': the wood is all thine own, 

Until the end of time." 

At length I saw a lady within call. 

Stiller than chisell'd marble, standing there; 

A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, 
And most divinely fair. 



144 A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN 



Her loveliness with shame and with surprise 

Froze my swifr speech; she turning on my face 

The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes, 
Spoke slowly in her place. 

*' I had o-reat beauty : ask thou not mv name: 
No one can be more ^vise than destinv. 

Many drew swords and died. Where'er I came 
I brought calamity." 

" No marvel, sovereign lady : in fair field 

Myself for such a face had boldly died." 

I answer'd free; and turning I appealed 
To one that stood beside. 

But she, with sick and scornful looks averse, 

To her full height her stately stature draws; 

*' My vouth," she said, " was blasted with a curse: 
This woman was the cause. 

*' I was cut off from hope in tliat sad place. 

Which yet to name my spirit loathes and fears: 

My father held his hand upon his face: 
I, blinded with my tears, 

*' Still strove to speak: my voice was thick with sighs 
As in a dream. Dimly I could descrv 

The stern black-bearded kings with wolfish eyes, 
Waiting to see me die. 

" The high masts flicker'd as they lay afloat; 

The crowds, the temples, waver'd, and the shore; 
The bright death quiver'd at the victim's throat; 

Touch'd; and I knew no more." 

W^hereto the other with a downward brow:' 

'• I would the white cold heavy-plunging foam, 

W^hirl'd by the wind, had roU'd me deep below. 
Then when I left my home." 

Her slow full words sank thro' the silence drear, 
As thunder-drops fall on a sleeping sea; 




"A queen \vith swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes.* 



A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 145 

Sudden I heard a voice that cried, " Come here, 
That I may look on thee." 

I turning- saw, thron'd on a flowery rise, 

One sitting on a crimson scarf unroll'd; 
A queen, with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes, 

Brow-bound with burning gold. 

She, flashing forth a haughty smile, began: 

" I govern'd men by change, and so I sway'd 

All moods. 'Tis long since I have seen a man. 
Once, like the moon, I made 

*' The ever-shifting currents of the blood 

According to my humor ebb and flow. 
I have no men to govern in this wood: 

That makes my only woe. 

*' Nay — yet it chafes me that I could not bend 

One will; nor tame and tutor with mine e^'e 

That dull cold-blooded Caesar. Prythee, friend. 
Where is Mark Antony.^ 

*' The man, my lover, with whom I rode sublime 
On Fortune's neck: we sat as God by God: 

The Nilus would have risen before his time 
And flooded at our nod. 

*' We drank the Libyan sun to sleep, and lit 

Lamps which outburn'd Canopus. O my life 

In Egypt! O the dalliance and the wit, 
The flattery and the strife, 

*' And the wild kiss, when fresh from war's alarms, 

My Hercules, my Roman Antony, 
My mailed Bacchus leapt into my arms. 

Contented there to die! 

*' And there he died: and when I heard mv name 

Sigh'd forth with life I would not brook my fear 
Of the other: with a worm I balk'd his fame. 
What else was left ? look here ! " 
10 



146 



A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 



(With that she tore her robe apart, and half 
The poHsh'd argent of her breast to sight 

Laid bare. Thereto she pointed with a laugh, 
Showing the aspic's bite.) 




" I died a Queen. The Roman soldier found 
Me lying dead, my crown about my brows, 

A name forever! — lying robed and crown'd. 
Worthy a Roman spouse." 

Her warbling voice, a lyre of widest range 

Struck by all passion, did fall down and glance 

From tone to tone, and glided thro' all change 
Of liveliest utterance. 

When she made pause I knew not for delight; 

Because with sudden motion from the ground 
She rais'd her piercing orbs, and fill'd with light 

The interval of sound. 



Still with their fires Love tipt his keenest darts ; 

As once they drew into two burning rings 
All beams of Love, melting the mighty hearts 

Of captains and of kings. 



A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 



147 



Slowly my sense undazzled. Then I heard 

A noise of some one coming thro' the lawn, 

And singing clearer than the crested bird, 
That claps his wings at dawn. 

" The torrent brooks of hallow'd Israel 

From craggy hollows pouring, late and soon, 

Sound all night long, in falling thro' the dell, 
Far-heard beneath the moon. 








" The balmy moon of blessed Israel 

Floods all the deep-blue gloom with beams divine; 
All night the splinter'd crags that wall the dell 

With spires of silver shine." 



As one that museth where broad sunshine laves 
The lawn of some cathedral, thro' the door 

Hearing the holy organ rolling waves 
Of sound on roof and floor 



148 A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 



Within, and antlieni sung, is charm'd and tied 

To where he stands, — so stood I, when that flow 

Of music left the lips of her that died 
To save her father's vow ; 

The daughter of the warrior Gileadite, 

A maiden pure; as when she went along 

From Mizpeh's tower'd gate with welcome light, 
With timbrel and with song. 

My words leapt forth : " Heaven heads the count of crimes 
W^ith that wild oath." She render'd answer high: 

" Not so, nor once alone; a thousand times 
I would be born and die. 

" Single I grew, like some green plant, whose root 
Creeps to the garden water-pipes beneath. 

Feeding the flower; but ere my flower to fruit 
Chang'd, I was ripe for death. 

" My God, my land, my father, — these did move 
Me from my bliss of life, that Nature gave, 

Lower'd softly with a threefold cord of love 
Down to a silent grave. 

" And I went mourning, ' No fair Hebrew boy 
Shall smile away my maiden blame among 

The Hebrew mothers ' — emptied of all joy, 
Leaving the dance and song, 

" Leaving the olive-gardens far below. 

Leaving the promise of my bridal bower. 

The valleys of grape-loaded vines that glow 
Beneath the battled tower. 

c 

" The light white cloud swam over us. Anon 
We heard the lion roaring from his den; 

We saw the large white stars rise one by one. 
Or, from the darken'd glen, 

" Saw God divide the night with flying flame. 
And thunder on the everlasting hills. 



A DREAM OF FAIR VvOMEN. 



149 




I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became 
A solemn scorn of ills. 

" When the next moon was roll'd into the skv, 
Strength came to me that equall'd my desire. 

How beautiful a thing it was to die 
For God and for my sire! 

"It comforts me in this one thought to d^vell. 
That I subdu'd me to my father's will; 

Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell, 
Sweetens the spirit still. 

" Moreover it is written that my race 

Hew'd Amnion, hip and thigh, from Aroer 

On Arnon unto Minneth." Here her face 
Glow'd as I look'd at her. 



She lock'd her lips: she left me where I stood: 
" Glory to God," she sang, and past afar, 

Thridding the sombre boskage of the wood, 
Toward the mornine-star. 



150 A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 

Losing her carol I stood pensively, 

As one that from a casement leans his head, 

When midnight bells cease ringing suddenly, 
And the old year is dead. 

" Alas! alas! " a low voice, full of care, 

Murmur'd beside me: " Turn and look on me: 

I am that Rosamond, whom men call fair, 
If what I was I be. 

" Would I had been some maiden coarse and poor! 

O me, that I should ever see the light! 
Those dragon eyes of anger'd Eleanor 

Do haunt me, day and night." 

She ceas'd in tears, fallen from hope and trust. 

To whom the Egyptian: " O, you tamely died! 
You should have clung to Fulvia's waist, and thrust 

The dagger thro' her side." 

With that sharp sound the white daw^n's creeping beams, 
Stol'n to my brain, dissolv'd the mystery 

Of folded sleep. The captain of my dreams 
Rul'd in the eastern sky. 

Morn broaden'd on the borders of the dark. 

Ere I saw her, who clasp'd in her last trance 

Her murder'd father's head, or Joan of Arc, 
A light of ancient France; 

O, her, who knew that Love can vanquish Death, 
Who kneeling, with one arm about her king. 

Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath, 
Sweet as new buds in Spring. 

No memory labors longer from the deep 

Gold-mines of thought to lift the hidden ore 

That glimpses, moving up, than I from sleep 
To gather and tell o'er 

Each little sound- and sigrht. With what dull pain 



-^ 



pai 



Compass'd, how eagerly I sought to strike 




JOAN OF ARC. 



MARGARET. 



151 



Into that wondrous track of dreams again! 
But no two dreams are like. 



As when a soul laments, which hath been blest, 
Desiring what is mingl'd with past years. 

In yearning that can never be exprest 
By signs or groans or tears; 

Because all words, tho' cuU'd with choicest art, 
Failing to give the bitter of the sweet, 

Wither beneath the palate, and the heart 
Faints, faded by its heat. 



••^$:5?fl^^)|g-58^?:^ 



MARGARET, 




SWEET pale Margaret, 
O rare pale Margaret, 
What lit your eyes with tearful power. 
Like moonlight on a falling shower? 
Who lent you, love, your mortal dower 

Of pensive thought and aspect pale, 
Your melancholy, sweet and frail 
As perfume of the cuckoo-flower? 
From the westward winding flood. 
From the evening-lighted wood. 

From all things outward you have won 
A tearful grace, as tho' you stood 

Between the rainbow and the sun. 
The very smile before you speak. 
That dimples your transparent cheek. 

Encircles all the heart, and feedeth 
The senses with a still delight 

Of dainty sorrow without sound. 
Like the tender amber round, 
Which the moon about her spreadeth 
Moving thro' a fleecy night. 



152 MARGARET. 



You love, remaining peacefully, 

To hear the murmur of the strife, 
But enter not the toil of life. 

Your spirit is the calmed sea, 

Laid bv the tumult of the fight. 

You are the evening star, alway 

Remaining betwixt dark and briorht: 

o o 

Lull'd echoes of laborious day 

Come to you, gleams of yellow light 
Float by you on the verge of night. 

What can it matter, Margaret, 

What songs below the weaning stars 
The lion-heart, Plantagenet, 

Sang looking thro' his prison bars? 
Exquisite Margaret, who can tell 
The last wild thought of Chatalet, 
Just ere the fallen axe did part 
The burning brain from the true heart, 
Even in her sight he loved so well? 

A fairy shield your Genius made 

And gave you on your natal day. 
Your sorrow, only sorrow's shade, 

Keeps real sorrow far away. 
You move not in such solitudes. 

You are not less divine, 
But more human in your moods. 

Than your twin -sister, Adeline. 
Your hair is darker, and your eyes 

Touch'd with a somewhat darker hue. 

And less aerially blue 

But ever trembling thro' the dew 
Of dainty-woful sympathies. 

O sweet pale Margaret, 
O rare pale Margaret, 
Come down, come down, and hear me speak; 
Tie up the ringlets on your cheek: 

The sun is just about to set. 
The arching limes are tall and shady. 
And faint, rainy lights are seen, 
Moving in the leafy beech. 



«?5^ 

















P-^^^^Ws^frp? 



"Blackbird ! sing me something well. 



THE BLACKBIRD. 



153 



Rise from the feast of sorrow, lady, 

Where all day long you sit between 
Joy and woe, and whisper each. 

Or onl}^ look across the lawn. 

Look out below your bower-eaves, 

Look down, and let your blue eyes dawn 
Upon me thro' the jasmine-leaves. 



THE BLACKBIRD, 




^ \^ 



Blackbird! sing me something well. 

While all the neighbors shoot thee round, 
1 keep smooth plats of fruitful ground. 

Where thou may'st warble, eat, and dwell. 



s^'<^ The espaliers and the standards all 

Are thine; the range of lawn and park: 
The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark. 
All thine, against the garden wall. 

Yet, tho' I spared thee all the S^jring, 
Thy sole delight is, sitting still. 
With that gold dagger of th}^ bill 

To fret the Summer jenneting. 

A golden bill! the silver tongue, 

Cold February loved, is dry: 

Plenty corrupts the melody 
That made thee famous once, when young: 

And in the sultry garden-squares, 

Now thy flute notes are chang'd to coarse, 
I hear thee not at all, or hoarse 

As when a hawker hawks his wares. 



Take warning! he that will not sing 
While 3''on sun prospers in the blue. 
Shall sing for want, ere leaves are new. 

Caught in the frozen palms of Spring. 



154 



THE GOOSE. 



THE GOOSE. 




KNEW an old wife lean and poor, 

Her rags scarce held together; 
There strode a stranger to the door, 

And it was windy weather. 

He held a goose upon his arm. 

He utter'd rhyme and reason, 
" Here, take the goose, and keep you warm, 

It is a stormy season." 



She caught the white goose by the leg. 

A goose — 'twas no great matter. 
The goose let fall a golden egg 

With cackle and with clatter. 



She dropt the goose and caught the pelf. 
And ran to tell her neighbors; 
And bless'd herself, and curs'd herself. 
And rested from her labors. 



h, and living soft, 



And feeding hi< 

Grew plump and able-bodied; 
Until the grave churchwarden doff'd, 

The parson smirk'd and nodded. 



So sitting, serv'd by man and maid. 
She felt her heart grow prouder: 

But ah! the more the white goose laid 
It clack'd and cackled louder. 



It clutter'd here, it chuckled there; 

It stirr'd the old wife's mettle : 
She shifted in her elbow-chair. 

And hurl'd the pan and kettle. 



THE GOOSE. 



155 



" A quinsy choke thy cursed note ! " 
Then wax'd her anger stronger. 

" Go, take the goose, and wring her throat, 
I v/ill not bear it longer." 

Then yelp'd the cur, and yawl'd the cat; 

Ran Gaffer, stumbled Gammer; 
The goose flew this way and flew that, 

And fill'd the house with clamor. 




As head and heels upon the floor 
They flounder'd all together, 

There strode a stranger to the door. 
And it was windy weather:. 



He took the goose upon his arm. 
He utter'd words of scorning; 

" So keep you cold, or keep you warm, 
It is a stormy morning." 



156 



O DARLING ROOM. 



The wild wind rang from park and plain, 
And round the attics rumbled, 

Till all the tables danc'd again 
And half the chimneys tumbled. 

The glass blew in, the fire blew out, 
The blast was hard and harder, 

Her cap blew off, her gown blew up, 
And a whirlwind clear'd the larder; 

And while on all sides breaking loose 
Her household fled the danger. 

Quoth she, " The Devil take the goose, 
And God forget the stranger." 



O DARLING ROOM. 




I DARLING room, my heart's delight, 
t Dear room, the apple of my sight. 
With thy two couches soft and white, 
There is no room so exquisite. 
No little room so warm and bright. 
Wherein to read, wherein to write 



For I the Nonneuwerth have seen, 
And Oberwinter's vineyards green, 
Musical Lurlei; and between 
The hills to Bingen have I been, 
Bingen in Darmstadt, where the Rhene 
Curves toward Mentz, a woodv scene. 



Yet never did there meet my sight, 

In any town to left or right, 

A little room so exquisite, 

With two such couches soft and white; 

Not any room so warm and bright, 

Wherein to read, wherein to write. 



THE DEATH OF THE OLD TEAR. 



157 



THE DEATH OF THE OLD TEAR, 




ULL icnee deep lies the winter snow, 

And the winter winds are wearily sighing: 
Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow, 
And tread softly and speak low, 
For the old year lies a-dying. 
Old year, yon must not die: 
^ You came to us so readily. 

You lived with us so steadil}^, 
Old year, you shall not die. 



He lieth still: he doth not move: 

He will not see the dawn of day. 

He hath no other life above. 

He gave me a friend, and a true, true-love, 

And the New-year will take 'em away. 

Old year, you must not go; 

So long as you have been with us. 

Such joy as you have seen with us, 

Old year, you shall not go. 



He froth'd his bumpers to the brim; 

A jollier 3'ear we shall not see. 

But tho' his eyes are waxing dim, 

And tho' his foes speak ill of him, 

He was a friend to me. 

Old year, you shall not die; 
We did so laugh and cry v/ith you, 
I've half a mind to die with you, 
Old year, if you must die. 



He was full of joke and jest. 
But all his merry quips are o'er. 
To see him die, across the waste 
His son and heir doth ride post-haste. 
But he'll be dead before. 

Every one for his own. 

The night is starry and cold, my friend, 



158 



TO J- 



And the Xew-year blithe and bold, my fiiend, 
Comes up to take his own. 

How hard he breathes ! over the snow 
I heard just now the crowing cock. 
The shadows flicker to and fro : 
The cricket chirps: the light burns low : 
'Tis nearly twelve o'clock. 

Shake hands, before you die. 

Old \'ear, we'll dearly rue for you : 

What is it we can do for you ? 

Speak out before vou die. 

His face is growing sharp and thin. 
Alack ! our friend is gone, 
Close up his eyes: tie up his chin; 
Step from the corpse, and let him in 
That standeth there alone, 

And waiteth at the door. 

There's a new foot on the floor, my friend. 

And a new face at the door, my friend, 

A new face at the door. 



••^=:^^:;g-^=^«— 



TO J- 



S- 




c:-HE wind, that beats the mountain, blows 

More softly round the open wold, 
'4»And gently comes the world to those 
That are cast in gentle mould. 



And me this knowledge bolder made. 
Or else I had not dared to flow 

In these words tovv^ard you, and invade 
Even with a verse vour holv woe. 



'Tis strange that those we lean on most. 
Those in whose laps our limbs are nurs'd. 



TO J 6- . 

Fall into shadow, soonest lost: 

Those we love first are taken first. 

God gives us love. Something to love 
He lends us; but, when love is grown 

To ripeness, that on which it throve 
Falls oflT, and love is left alone. 

This is the curse of time. Alas! 

In grief I am not all unlearn'd; 
Once thro' mine own doors Death did pass; 

One w^ent, who never hath returned. 

He will not smile— not speak to me 

Once more. Two years his chair is seen 

Empty before us. That was he 

Without whose life I had not been. 



Your loss is rarer; for this star 
Rose with you thro' a little arc 

Of heaven, nor having wander'd far 
Shot on the sudden into dark. 



I knew your brother: his mute dust 
I honor and his living worth : 

A man more pure and bold and just 
Was never born into the earth. 



I have not look'd upon you nigh. 

Since that dear soul had fall'n asleep. 

Great Nature is more wise than I : 
I will not tell you not to weep. 

And tho' mine own eyes fill with dew, 
Drawn from the spirit thro' the brain, 

I will not even preach to you, 

" Weep, weeping dulls the inward pain." 

Let Grief be her own mistress still. 

She loveth her own anguish deep 
More than much pleasure. Let her will 

Be done — to weep or not to weep. 



159 



160 TO y- 



I will not say, " God's ordinance 

Of death is blown in every wind "; 

For that is not a common chance 
That takes away a noble mind. 

His memory long will live alone 
In all our hearts, as mournful light 

That broods above the fallen sun. 

And dwells in heaven half the night. 

Vain solace! Memory standing near 
Cast down her eyes, and in her throat 

Her voice seemVJ distant, and a tear 
DroDt on the letters as T wrote. 

I wrote I know not what. In truth, 
How should I soothe you anyway, 

Who miss the brother £)f your youth.'' 
Yet something I did wish to say: 

For he too was a friend to me: 

Both are my friends, and my true breast 
Bleedeth for both: yet it may be 

That only silence suiteth best. 

Words ^veaker than your grief would make 
Grief more. 'Twere better I should cease; 

Although m\^self could almost take 

The place of him that sleeps in peace. 

Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace; 

Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul. 
While the stars burn, the moons increase, 

And the great ages onward roll. 

Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet. 
Nothing comes to thee new or strange. 

Sleep full of rest from head to feet; 
Lie still, dry dust, secure of change. 



FREEDOM. 



16.1 



FREEDOM. 




F old sat Freedom on the heights, 

The thunders breaking at her feet: 
Above her shook the starry Hghts ; 
She heard the torrents meet. 

There in her place she did rejoice, 
Self-gather'd in her prophet-mind, 

But fragments of her mighty voice 
Came rolling on the wind. 



Then stept she dov^n thro' town and field 
To mingle with the human race, 
x\nd part by part to men reveal'd 

The fulness of her face — 

Grave mother of majestic works. 

From her isle-altar gazing down, 

Who, God-like, grasps the triple-forks, 
And, King-like, wears the crown : 

Her open eyes desire the truth. 

The wisdom of a thousand years 
Is in them. May perpetual youth 

Keep dry their light from tears; 

That her fair form may stand and shine. 

Make bright our days and light our dreams, 

Turning to scorn with lips divine 
The falsehood of extremes! 




11 



162 rOU ASK ME, WHT. 




rOU ASK ME, WHT, 



OU ask me, why, tho' ill at ease. 
Within this region I subsist, 
Whose spirits falter in the mist, 

And languish for the purple seas? 

It is a land that freemen till, 

That sober-suited Freedom chose. 
The land, where girt with friends or foes 
A man may speak the thing he will; 

A land of settled government, 

A land of just and old renown 
Where freedom broadens slowly down 

From precedent to precedent; 

Where faction seldom gathers head. 
But by degrees to fulness ^vrought, 
The strength of some diffusive thought 

Hath time and space to work and spread. 

Should banded unions persecute 
Opinion, and induce a time 
When single thought is civil crime. 

And individual freedom mute; 

Tho' Power should make from land to land 
The name of Britain trebly great — 
Tho' every channel of the State 

Should almost choke with golden sand — 

Yet waft me from the harbor-mouth, 
Wild wind! I seek a warmer sky, 
And I will see before I die 

The palms and temples of the South, 



LOVB THOU THT LAND. 



163 




LOVE THOU THT LAND, 



OVE thou thy land, with love far-brought 
From out the storied Past, and used 
Within the Present, but transfused 
Thro' future time by power of thought. 

j>. True love turn'd round on fixed poles, 
Love, that endures not sordid ends, 
For English natures, freemen, friends, 
Thy brothers and immortal souls. 



But pamper not a hasty time, 
Nor feed with crude imaginings 
The herd, wild hearts and feeble wings, 

That every sophister can lime. 

Deliver not the tasks of might 

To w.eakness, neither hide the ray 
From thos^, not blind, who wait for day, 

Tho' sitting girt with doubtful light. 



Make knowledge circle with the winds; 

But let her herald. Reverence, fl}^ 

Befoie her to whatever sky 
Bear seed of men and growth of minds. 

Watch what main-currents draw the years; 
Cut prejudice against the grain: 
But gentle words are always gain: 

Regard the weakness of thy peers: 



Nor toil for title, place, or touch. 

Of pension, neither count on praise; 
It grows to guerdon after-days: 

Nor deal in watch-words overmuch: 



164 LOVE THOU THT LAND. 

Not clinging to some ancient saw; 
Not master'd by some modern term : 
Not swift nor slow to change, but firm: 

And in its season bring the law; 

That from Discussion's lip may fall 

With Life, that, working strongly, binds- 
Set in all lights by many minds, 

To close the interests of all. 



For Nature, also, cold and warm. 
And moist and dry devising long, 
Thro' many agents making strong, 

Matures the individual form. 

Meet is it changes should control 
Our being, lest we rust in ease. 
We all are chang'd by still degrees, 

All but the basis of the soul. 



So let the change which comes be free 
To ingroove itself with that which flies, 
And work, a joint of state, that plies 

Its ofl[ice, moved with sympathy. 

A saying, hard to shape in act; 
For all the past of Time reveals 
A bridal dawn of thunder-peals. 

Wherever Thought hath wedded Fact. 

E'en now we hear with inward strife 
A motion toiling in the gloom — - 
The Spirit of the years to come 

Yearning to mix himself with Life. 

A slow-develop'd strength awaits 
Completion in a painful school; 
Phantoms of other forms of rule, 

New Majesties of mighty States — ■ 

The warders of the o^ro wins' hour, 
But vague in vapor, hard to mark; 



LOVE THO U TH7- LAXD. 1 65 



And round them sea and air are dark 
^Yith great contrivances of Power. 

Of many changes, aptly join'd, 
Is bodied forth the second whole. 
Regard gradation, lest the soul 

Of Discord race the rising wind; 

A \vind to puff vour idol-fires, 

And heap their ashes on the head; 
To sliame the boast so often made, 

That we are ^viser than our sires. 

O vet, if Nature's evil star 

Drive men in manhood, as in vouth, 
To follow flying steps of Truth 

Across the brazen bridge of war — 

If Xew and Old, disastrous feud. 
Must ever shock, like armed foes, 
And this be true, till time shall close, 

That Piinciples are rain'd in blood; 

Not yet the ^vise of heart \vould cease 
To hold his hope thro' shame and guilt. 
But with his hand against the hilt, 

Would pace the troubled land, like Peace; 

Not less, tho' dogs of Faction bay, 

AVould serve his kind in deed and ^vord. 
Certain, if knowledge bring the sword, 

That knowledge takes the sword away — 

Would love the gleam of good that broke 
From either side, nor veil liis eyes : 
And if some dreadful need should rise 

Would strike, and firmly, and one stroke 

To-moriow yet would reap to-day. 
As we bear blossom of the dead, 
Earn well the thrifty months, nor wed 

Raw Haste, half-sister to Delay. 



166 



A FRAGMENT. 



A FRAGMENT.'' 




HERE is the Giant of the Sun, which stood 
In the midnoon, the glory of old Rhodes, 
A perfect Idol with profulgent brows 
Far-sheening down the purple seas to those . 
Who sail'd from Mizraim underneath the star 
Named of the Dragon — and between whose limbs 
Of brassy vastness broad-blown Argosies 
Drave into haven? Yet endure unscath'd 
Of changeful cycles the great Pyramids 
Broad-based amid the fleeting sands, and slop'd 
Into the slumberous summer-noon; but where 
Mysterious Egypt, are thine obelisks 
Graven wnth gorgeous einbiems undiscern'd? 
Thy placid Sphinxes brooding o'er the Nile? 
Thy shadowing Idols in the solitudes. 
Awful Memnonian countenances calm 
Looking ath\vart the burning flats, far off 
Seen by the high-neck'd camel on the verge 
Journeying southward? Where are thy monuments 
Piled by the strong and sunborn Anakim 
Over their crown'd brethren Ox and Oph? 
Thy Memnon when his peaceful lips are kist 
With earliest rays, that from his mother's eyes 
Flow over the Arabian bay, no more 
Breathes low into the charmed ears of morn 
Clear melody flattering the crisped Nile 
By column'd Thebes. Old Memphis hath gone down: 
The Pharaohs are no more: somewhere in death 
They sleep with staring eyes and gilded lips, 
Arapped round with spiced cerements in old grots 
Rock-hewn and sealed forever. 




*Tlus and the t\vo following selections are from the Gem, a literary annual for 1831. 



NO MORE.— ANACREONTICS. 



167 



NO MORE. 




Sad No More ! O sweet No More ! 
O strange No More ! 
\ By a mossed brook-bank on a stone 
I smelt a wildweed flower alone : 
There was a ringing in my ears, 
And both my eyes gush'd out with tears. 
Surely all ple^isant things had gone before, 
Low-buried fathom deep beneath with thee, 
No More! 



^^$1^^:=5^ 



ANA CRE ONTICS, 




ITH roses musky-breathed. 
And drooping daffodilly, 
And silver-leaved lily, 
And ivy darkly-wreath'd, 
I wove a crown before her. 
For I love her so dearly, 
A garland for Lenora. 
With a silken cord I bound it. 
Lenora, laughing clearly 
A light and thrilling laughter, 
About her forehead wound 
And lov'd me ever after. 




THE HESPERIDES. 



171 



THE HESPERIDES, 



" Hesperus and his daughters three, 
That sing about the golden tree." 



— Comiis, 




I^^HE North-wind fall'n, In the new-starred night 
Zidonian Hanno, voyaging beyond 
The hoary promontory of Soloe 
Past Thymiaterion, in cahned bays, 
Between the southern and the Avestern Horn, 
Heard neither warbling of the nightingale, 
Nor melod}^ of the Libyan lotus flute 
Blown seaward from the shore; but from a slope 
That ran bloom-bright into the Atlantic blue. 
Beneath a highland leaning down a weight 
Of cliffs, and zon'd below with cedar shade. 
Came voices, like the voices in a dream. 
Continuous, till he reach'd the outer sea. 

SONG. 

The golden apple, the golden apple, the hallow'd fruit. 

Guard it well, guard it warily. 

Singing airily. 

Standing about the charmed root. 

Round about all is mute. 

As the snow-field on the mountain-peaks. 

As the sand-field at the mountain-foot. 

Crocodiles in briny creeks 

Sleep and stir not: all is mute. 

If ye sing not, if ye make false measure, 

We shall lose eternal pleasure. 

Worth eternal want of rest. 

Laugh not loudly : watch the treasure 

Of the wisdom of the West. 

In a, corner wisdom whispers. Five and three 

(Let it not be preached abroad) make an avyful mystery, 

For the blossom unto threefold music bloweth; 

Evermore it is boi"n anew; 



172 THE HESPERIDES. 



And the sap to threefold music floweth, 

From the root 

Drawn in the dark, 

Up to the fruit, 

Creeping under the fragrant bark, 

Liquid gold, honeysweet, thro' and thro'. 

Keen-eyed sisters, singing airily. 

Looking warily 

Every ^vay. 

Guard the apple night and day. 

Lest one from the East come and take it away. 

Father Hesper, Father Hesper, watch, ^vatch, ever and aye. 

Looking under silver hair with a silver eye. 

Father, twinkle not thy steadfast sight 

Kingdoms lapse, and climates change, and races die; 

Honor comes with mystery; 

Hoarded wisdom brings delight. 

Number, tell them over and number 

How many the mystic fruit-tree holds 

Lest the red-comb'd dragon slumber 

Rolled together in purple folds. 
Look to him, father, lest he wink, and the golden apple be stol'n away, 
For his ancient heart is drunk with overwatchings night and day, 

Round about the hallow'd fruit-tree curPd — 

Sing away, sing aloud evermore in the wind, without stop, 

Lest his scaled eyelid drop, 

For he is older than the world. 

If he waken, we waken, 

Rapidly levelling eager eyes. 

If he sleep, we sleep, 

Dropping the eyelid over the eyes. 

If the golden apple be taken. 

The world will be overwise. 

Five links, a golden chain, are we, 

Hesper, the dragon, and sisters three. 

Bound about the o-olden tree. 



Father Hesper, Father Hesper, watch, watch, night and day. 

Lest the old wound of the world be healed. 

The glory unsealed, 

The golden apple stolen awa}^, 

And the ancient secret revealed 

Look from west to east along: 



THE HESPERIDES. 173 



Father, old Himala weakens, Caucasus is bold and strong. 

Wandering waters unto wandering waters call. 

Let them clash together, foam and fall. 

Out of watchings, out of wiles. 

Comes the bliss of secret smiles. 

All things are not told to all. 

Half-round the mantling^ nio-ht is drawn. 

Purple fring'd with even and dawn, 

Hesper hateth Phosphor, evening hateth morn. 

Every flower and every fruit the redolent breath 

Of this warm sea-wind ripeneth, 

Arching the billow in his sleep: 

But the land-wind wandereth. 

Broken by the highland-steep. 

Two streams upon the violet deep; 

For the western sun and the western star 

And the low west-wind, breathing afar. 

The end of day and beginning of night 

Make the apple holy and bright; 

Holy and bright, round and full, bright and blest, 

Mellow'd in a land of rest; 

Watch It warily day and night; 

AH good things are in the west. 

Till mid-noon the cool east light 

Is shut out by the tall hill-brow; 

But when the full-faced sunset yellowly 

Stays on the flowering arch of the bough, 

The luscious fruitage clustereth mellowly, 

Golden-kernell'd, golden-cor'd, 

Sunset-ripen'd above on the tree. 

The world is wasted with fire and sword, 

But the apple of gold hangs over the sea. 

Five links, a golden chain are we, 

Hesper, the dragon, and sisters three. 

Daughters three. 

Bound about 

The gnarled bole of the charmed tree. 

The golden apple, the golden apple, the hallow'd fruit, 

Guard it well, guard it warily, 

Watch it warily. 

Singing airily, 

Standing about the charmed root. 



174 



ROSALIND. 



ROSALIND, 




Rosalind, my Rosalind, 
My frolic falcon with bright eyes, 

Whose free delight, from any height of rapid 
flight, 
Stoops at all games that -wing the skies, 
My Rosalind, my Rosalind, 
My bright-eyed, wild-eyed falcon, whither 
Careless both of wind and weather. 
Whither fly ye, what game spy ye. 
Up or down the streaming wind? 

The quick lark's closest-carolPd strains, 
The shadow rushing up the sea. 
The lightning flash atween the rains. 
The sunlight driving down the lea, 
The leaping stream, the very wind 
That will not stay, upon his way, 
To stoop the cowslip to the plains, 
Is not so clear and bold and free 
As you, my falcon Rosalind. 
You care not for another's pains 
Because you are the soul of joy, 
Brio-ht metal all without alloy. 
Life shoots and glances thro' your veins, 
And flashes oflf a thousand ways 
Thro' lips and eyes in subtle rays. 
Your hawk-eyes are keen and bright 
Keen with triumph, watching still 
To pierce me thro' with pointed light; 
But oftentimes they flash and glitter 
Like sunshine on a dancing rill, 
And your words are seeming-bitter, 
Sharp and few, but seeming-bitter. 
From excess of swift delight. 



Come down, come home, my Rosalind, 
My gay young hawk, my Rosalind: 



ROSALIND. 175 



Too long you keep the upper skies; 

Too long you roam and wheel at -will: 

But we must hood your random eyes 

That care not whom they kill, 

And your cheek, whose brilliant hue 

Is so sparkling fresh to view, 

Some red heath-flower in the dew, 

Touch'd with sunrise. We must bind 

And keep 3^ou fast, my Rosalind, 

Fast, fast, my wild-eyed Rosalind, 

And clip your wings, and make you love: 

When we have lured you from above. 

And that delight pf frolic flight, b)^ day or night, 

From north to south ; 

Will bind you fast in silken cords, 

And kiss av/ay the bitter words 

From off your rosy mouth.* 



[*Perhaps the following lines may be allowed to stand as a separate poem ; originally they 
made part of the text, where they were manifestly superfluous. — Author's Note.] 

My Rosalind, my Rosalind, 

Bold, subtle, careless Rosalind, 

Is one of those who know nostrlfe 

Of inward woe or outward fear; 

To whom the slope and stream of Life 

The life before, the life behind. 

In the ear, from far and near, 

Chimeth musically clear. 

My falcon-hearted Rosalind, 

Full-sail'd before a vigorous ^vind, 

Is one of those who cannot weep 

For other's woes, but overleap 

All the petty shocks and fears 

That trouble life in early years, 

With a flash of frolic scorn 

And keen delight, that never falls 

Away from freshness, self-upborne 

With such gladness as, whenever 

The fresh-flushing springtime calls 

To the flooding waters cool. 

Young fishes, on an April morn. 

Up and down a rapid river, 



176 TO 



Leap the little waterfalls 

That sing into the pebbled pool. 

My happy falcon, Rosalind, 

Hath daring fancies of her own, 

Fresh as the dawn before the dav, 

Fresh as the early sea-smell blown 

Through vineyards from an inland bay. 

My Rosalind, my Rosalind, 

Because no shadow on you falls. 

Think you hearts are tennis balls 

To play with, wanton Rosalind? 



'•^>^y^.^^W:^ 



TO 




LL good things have not kept aloof. 
Nor wander'd into other ways; 
I have not lack'd thy mild reproof, 
Nor golden largess of thy praise; 
But life is full of weary days. 



vShake hands, my friend, across the brink 
Of that deep grave to which I go. 

Shake hands once more : I cannot sink 
So far — far down, but I shall know 
Thy voice, and answer from below. 

When, in the darkness over me 

The four handed mole shall scrape, 

Plant thou no dusky cypress-tree. 

Nor wreathe thy cap with doleful crape, 
But pledge me in the flowing grape. 

And when the sappy field and wood 

Grow green beneath the showery gray. 

And rugged barks begin to bud, 

And thro' damp holts new flush'd with May, 
Ring sudden scritches of the jay. 




"And when the sappy field and wood." 



KATE. 



Ill 



Then let wise Nature work her will, 
And on my clay the darnels grow. 

Come only when the days are still, 
And at my headstone whisper low, 
And tell me if the woodbines blow, 

If thou art blest, my mother's smile 
Undimm'd, if bees are on the wing: 

Then cease, my friend, a little while, 
That I may hear the throstle sing 
His bridal song, the boast of spring. 

Sweet as the noise in parched plains 
Of bubbling wells that fret the stones 

(If any sense in me remains), 

Thy words will be; thy cheerful tones 
As welcome to my crumbling bones. 





KNOW her by her angry air. 
Her bright black eyes, her bright black hair, 
Her rapid laughters, wild and shrill. 
As laughters of the woodpecker 

From the bosom of a hill. 
'Tis Kate — she sayeth what she will: 
For Kate hath an unbridl'd tongue. 
Clear as the twanging of a harp. 

Her heart is like a throbbing star. 
Kate hath a spirit ever strung 

Like a new bow, and bright and sharp 
As edges of the cimeter. 
Whence shall she take a fitting mate? 

For Kate no common love will fetl; 
My woman-soldier, gallant Kate, 
As Dure and true as blades of steel. 



12 



178 



SONMETS. 



Kate saith " the world is void of might." 
Kate saith " the men are gilded flies." 
Kate snaps her fingers at my vows; 
Kate w^ill not hear of lovers' sighs. 
I would I were an armed knight, 
Far-fam'd for well-won enterprise, 

And wearing on my swarthy brows 
The garland of nevs^-wreath'd emprise: 

For in a moment I would pierce 
The blackest files of clanging fight. 
And strongly strike to left and right, 
In dreaming of my lady's eyes. 

O! Kate loves well the bold and fierce 
But none are bold enough for Kate, 
She cannot find a fitting: mate. 



>^^r 



SOJViYBTS. 




INE be the strength of spirit full and free, 

Like some broad river rushing down alone. 

With the selfsame impulse ^vherewith he was thrown 

From his loud fount upon the echoing lea: — 

Which with increasins: migrht doth forward flee 

By town, and tower, and hill, and cape, and isle. 

And in the middle of the green salt sea 

Keeps his blue waters fresh for many a mile. 

Mine be the powder which ever to its sway 

Win win the ^vise at once, and b}^ degrees 

May into uncongenial spirits flow ; 

Ev'n as the great gulf-stream of Florida 

Floats far away into the northern seas 

The lavish grow^ths of southern Mexico. 



SONNETS. 179 



II. 



Who can say 

Why To-day 

To-morrow will be yesterday? 

Who can tell 

Why to smell 

The violet recalls the dewy prime 

Of youth and buried time? 

The cause is nowhere found in rhyme. 



III. 
TO CHRISTOPHER NORTH 

You did late review my la3^s, 

Crusty Christopher; 
You did mingle blame and praise, 

Rust}^ Christopher. 
When I learnt from Avhom it came 
I forgave you all the blame, 

Musty Christopher; 
I could not forgive the praise 

Fusty Christopher. 

IV. 

Caress'd or chidden by the slender hand. 

And singing airy trifles this or that, 
Light Hope at Beauty's call would perch and stand, 

And run thro' every change of sharp or flat; 
And Fanc}^ came and at her pillow sat, 
When Sleep had bound her in his rosy band, 

And chas'd away the still-recurring gnat. 
And woke her with a lay from fairy land. 
But now they live with Beauty less and less. 
For Hope is other Hope and wanders far. 

Nor cares to lisp in Love's delicious creeds; 
And Fancy watches in the v^ilderness. 
Poor Fancy sadder than a single star. 
That sets at twilight in a land of reeds. 



180 SONNETS. 



V. 



POLAND. * 



Blow ye the trumpet, gather from afar 
The hosts to battle: be not bought and sold. 
Arise, brave Poles, the boldest of the bold; 
Break thro' 3^our iron shackles — fling thein far. 
O for those days of Piast, ere the Czar 
Grew to his strength among his deserts cold ; 
When even to Moscow's cupolas were rolled 
The growing murmurs of the Polish war! 
Now must your noble anger blaze out more 
Than when from Sobieski, clan by clan. 
The Moslem myriads fell, and fled before — 
Than when Zamoysky smote the Tartar Khan; 
Than earlier, \vhen on the Baltic shore 
Boleslas drove the Pomeranian. 



VI. 



How long, O God, shall men be ridden down, 
And trampled under by the last and least 
Of men ? The heart of Poland hath not ceas'd 
To quiver, though her sacred blood^^doth drown 
The fields; and out of every smouldering town 
Cries to Thee, lest brute Power be increas'd, 
Till that o'ergrown Barbarian in the East 
Transgress his ample bound to some new crown : — 
Cries to Thee, " Lord, how long shall these things be? 
How long shall the icy-hearted Aluscovite 
Oppress the region ? " Us, O Just and Good, 
Forgive, who smil'd when she was torn in three; 
Us, who stand now, when we should aid the right — 
A matter to be wept with tears of blood ! 

VH. 

Wan Sculptor weepest thou to take the cast 
Of those dead lineaments that near thee lie? 
O sorrowest thou, pale Painter, for the past, 

* Written on hearing of the outbreak of the Polish insurrection. 



SONNETS. 181 



In painting some dead friend from memory? 
Weej^ on: beyond his object Love can last: 
His object lives: more cause to weep have I: 
My tears, no tears of love, are flow^ing fast, 

No tears of love, but tears that Love can die. 
I pledge her not in any cheerful cup, 

Nor care to sit beside her w^here she sits — 
Ah pity — hint it not in human tones, 
But breathe it into earth and close it up 

With secret death forever, in the pits 
Which some green Christmas crams v^ith weary bones. 



VIII. * 

Me my own fate to lasting sorrow doometh: 

Thy woes are birds of passage, transitory : 

Thy spirit, circl'd with a living glory. 
In summer still a summer joy resumeth. 
Alone my hopeless melancholy gloometb. 

Like a lone cypress, through the twilight hoary, 
From an old garden, where no flower bloometh, 

One cypress on an island promontory. 
But 3^et m}^ lonely spirit follows thine. 

As round the rolling earth night follows day: 
But yet thy lights on my horizon shine 

Into my night, when thou art far away. 
I am so dark, alas! and thou so bright 

When we two meet there's never perfect light. 



IX.* 

Check every outflash, every ruder sally 

Of thought and speech ; speak low and give up wholly 
Thy spirit to mild-minded melancholy ; 
This is the place. Thro' yonder poplar valley 

Below, the blue-green river windeth slowly; 
But in the middle of the sombre valley 
The crisped waters whisper musicall}-. 

And all the haunted place is dark and holy. 
The nightingale, with long and low preamble. 

Warbled from yonder knoll of solemn larches, 

* From Friendship's Oti-iring-, 1833. 



182 SOJV^^BTS. 



And in and out the woodbine's flowery arclies 
The summer midges wove their wanton gambol. 

And all the white-stemm'd pine-wood slept above- 
When in this valley first I told my love. 



X. 



ALEXANDER. 



Warrior of God, whose strong right arm debased 
The throne of Persia, when her Satrap bled 

At Issus by the Syrian gates, or fled 
Beyond the Memmian naphtha-pits, disgraced 
Forever — thee (thy pathway sand-erased) 

Gliding with equal crowns two serpents led 

Joyful to that palm-planted fountain-fed 
Ammonian Oasis in the waste. 
There in a silent shade of laurel brown 
Apart the Chamian Oracle divine 

Shelter'd his unapproach'd mysteries: 
High things were spoken there, unhanded down; 

Only they saw thee from the secret shrine 
Returning- with hot cheek and kindled eves. 



XL 



BUONAPARTE. 

We thought to quell the stubborn hearts of oak. 

Madman! — to chain with chains, and bind with bands 

That island queen that sways the floods and lands 

From Ind to Ind, but in fair d.a^dight woke, 

When from her wooden walls, lit by sure hands. 

With thunders, and with lightnings, and with smoke 

Peal after peal the British battle broke. 

Lulling the brine against the Coptic sands. 

We taught him lowdier moods, when Elsinore 

Heard the war moan along the distant sea. 

Rocking with shattered spars, with sudden fires 

Flamed over: at Trafalgar yet once more 

We taught him: late he learn'd humility 

Perforce, like those whom Gideon school'd with biiers. 



sojyjvETS. 183 



XII. 



TO 



As when with downcast eyes we muse and broody 
And ebb into a former life, or seem 
To lapse far back in a confused dream 
To states of mystical similitude; 
If one but speaks or hems or stirs his chair, 
Ever the wonder waxeth more and more. 
So that we say, " All this hath been before. 
All this /zath been, I know not when or where." 
So, friend, when first I look'd upon your face. 
Our thought gave answer, each to each, so true- 
Opposed mirrors, each reflecting each — 
Altho' I knew not in what time or place, 
Metbought that I had often met with you. 
And each had liv'd in th' other's mind and speech. 



XIII. 

The form, the form alone is eloquent! 

A nobler yearning never broke her rest 

Than but to dance and sing, be gaily drest, 
And win all eyes with all accomplishment: 
Yet in the whirling dances as we went. 
My fancy made me for a moment blest 

To find my heart so near the beauteous breast 
That once had power to rob it of content. 
A moment came the tenderness of tears. 

The phantom of a wish that once could move, 
A ghost of passion that no smiles restore — 

For ah! the slight coquette, she cannot love. 
And if you kiss'd her feet a thousand years. 

She still would take the praise, and care no more. 



XIV. 

O BRIDESMAID, ere the happy knot was tied. 
Thine eyes so wept that they could hardl}^ see; 
Thy sister smiled and said " No tears for me! 

A happy bridesmaid makes a happy bride." 



184 SONNETS. 



And then, the couple standing side by side, 

Love hghted down between them full of glee, 
And over his left shoulder laugh'd at thee, 

" O happv bridesmaid, make a happy bride." 

And all at once a pleasant truth I learn'd, 

For while the tender service made thee weep, 

I loved thee for the tear thou couldst not hide, 

And prest thy hand, and knew the press returned, 
. And thought, " My life is sick of single sleep: 

O happy bridesmaid, make a happy bride! " 

XV. 

Beauty, passing beauty! sweetest sweet! 
How canst thou let me waste my youth in sighs? 

1 only ask to sit beside thy feet, 

Thou knowest I dare not look into thine eyes. 
Might I but kiss thy hand! I dare not fold 

My arms about thee — scarcely dare to speak. 
And nothing seems to me so wild and bold. 

As with one kiss to touch thy blessed cheek. 
Methinks if I should kiss thee, no control 

Within the thrilling brain could keep afloat 
The subtle spirit. Even while I spoke 

The bare word kiss hath made my inner soul 
To tremble like a lute-string, ere a note 

Hath melted in the silence that it broke. 

XVI. 

But were I lov'd, as I desire to be, 

What is there in the great sphere of the earth. 

And range of evil between death and birth. 

That I should fear, — if I were lov'd by thee? 

All the inner, all the outer world of pain 

Clear Love would pierce and cleave, if thou w^ert mine. 

As I have heard that, somewhere in the main. 

Fresh-water springs come up through bitter brine. 

"'Twere joy, not fear, clasp'd hand-in-hand w^ith thee. 

To wait for death — mute — careless of all ills, 

Apart upon a mountain, through the surge 

Of some new deluge from a thousand hills 

Flung leagues of roaring foam into the gorge 

Below us, as far on as eye could see. 




See page 182. 




^^Qium wri^ 



AND OTHER POEMS 



^^hmm n. B. •i^'^^ 




THE EPIC. 



THE EPIC. 



187 




T Francis Allen's on the Christmas-eve, — 
The game of forfeits done — the girls all kiss'd 
Beneath the sacred bush and past away — 
The parson Holmes, the poet Everard Hall, 
The host, and I sat round the wassail-bowl, 
;^^ Then half-way ebb'd : and there we held a talk, 
How all the old honor had from Christmas gone, 
Or gone, or dwindled down to some odd games 
In some odd nooks like this; till I, tired out 
With cutting eights that day upon the pond, 
Where, three times slipping from the outer edge, 
I bump'd the ice into three several stars. 
Fell in a doze; and half-awake I heard 
The parson taking \vide and w^ider sweeps. 
Now harping on the church-commissioners. 
Now hawking at Geology and schism; 
Until I woke, and found him settled down 
Upon the general decay of faith 
Right thro' the world, " at home was little left. 
And none abroad: there was no anchor, none, 
To hold by." Francis, laughing, clapt his hand 
On Everard's shoulder, with " I hold by him." 
" And I," quoth Everard, " by the wassail-bowl." 
" Why yes," I said, " we knew your gift that way 
At college : but another which you had — 
I mean of verse (for so we held it then,) 

What came of that.? " " You know,'' said Frank, " he burnt 
His ejDic, his King Arthur, some twelve books" — 
And then to me demanding why, " O, sir. 
He thought that nothing new was said, or else 
Something so said 'twas nothing — that a truth 
Looks freshest in the fashion of the day: 
God knows: he has a mint of reasons: ask. 
It pleased me well enough." " Nay, nay," said Hall, 
" Why take the stjde of those heroic times? 
For nature brings not back the Mastodon, 
Nor we those times; and why should any man 
Remodel models? these twelve books of mine 



188 MORTE D' ARTHUR. 



Were faint Homeric echoes, nothing-worth, 

Mere chaff and draff, much better burnt." " But I," 

Said. Francis, " pick'd tlie eleventh from this hearth. 

And have it: keep a thing, its use will come. 

I hoard it as a sugar-plum for Holmes." 

He laugh'd, and I, though sleepy, like a horse 

That hears the corn-bin open, prick'd my ears; 

For I remember'd Everard's college fame 

When we wxre Freshmen: then at my request 

He brought it; and the poet little urged, 

But with some prelude of disparagement, 

Read, mouthing out his hollow oes and aes, 

Deep-chested music, and to this result. 



,\\ Ha 



MORTE D' ARTHUR. 



^-ifs^s^^Q ^j2 ^^y long the noise of battle roll'd 

Among the mountains by the winter sea; 
Until King Arthur's table, man by man, 
ad fall'n in Lyonness about their Lord, 
King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep, 
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him. 
Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights. 
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, 
A broken chancel with a broken cross, 
That stood on a dark strait of barren land. 
On one side lay the Ocean, and on one 
Lay a great water, and the moon v^as full. 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: 
« The secret of to-da}- unsolders all 
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights 
Whereof this vv^orld holds record. Such a sleep 
They sleep — the men I loved. I think that we 
Shall never more, at any future time. 
Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, 
Walking about the gardens and the halls 
Of Camelot, as in the days that were. 
I perish by this people which I made, — ■ 
Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again 
To rule once more — but let what will be, be. 



MORTE D ARTHUR. 



189 



I am so deeply smitten thro' the hehii 
That without help I cannot last till morn. 
Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur, 
Which was my pride : for thou rememb'rest how 



S^=^i^^gt 


v^^ 


-^^S^ 




— ==-i5^ 



In those old days, one summer noon, an arm 

Rose up from out the bosom of the lake, 

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 

Holding the sword — and how I rowed across 

And took it, and have worn it, like a king: 

And, wheresoever I am sung or told. 

In aftertime, this also shall be known: 

But now delay not: take Excalibur, 

And fling him far into the middle-mere: 

Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word.' 



190 MORTE D' ARTHUR. 



To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere: 
" It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus. 
Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm. 
A little thing may harm a wounded man. 
Yet I thy hest will all perform at full. 
Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee w^ord." 
So saying, fj-om the ruined shrine he stept 
And in the moon athwart the place of tombs. 
Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men. 
Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang 
Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down 
By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock, 
Came on the shining levels of the lake. 
There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, 
And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, 
Briqhtenin^ the skirts of a lono^ cloud, ran forth 
And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt: 
For all the haft twinkled with diamond studs, 
Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work 
Of subtlest ie^velr^^ He gazed so long, 
That both his eyes Avere dazzled, as he stood, 
This way and that dividing the swift mind. 
In act to throw : but at the last it seem'd 
Better to leave Excalibur conceal'd 
There in the many-knotted waterflags, 
That whistled stiff and dry about the marge. 
So strode he back slow to the wounded king. 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: 
"Hast thou perform'd my mission which I gave? 
What is it thou hast seen or ^vhat hast heard ? " 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: 
" I heard the ripple washing in the reeds. 
And the wild water lapping on the crag." 

To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale: 
" Thou hast betray 'd thy nature and thy name, 
Not rendering true answer, as beseem'd 
Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight: 
For surer sign had follow'd, either hand, 
Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. 
This is a shameful thing for men to lie. 
Yet no\v, I charge thee, quickly go again 



MORTE D' ARTHUR. 191 



As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing 

I bade thee, watch, and hghtly bring me word." 

Then went Sir Bedivere the second time 
Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere, 
Counting the dewy pebbles, fix'd in thought; 
But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, 
How curiously and strangely chas'd, he smote 
His palms together, and he cried aloud : 

" And if indeed I cast the brand a^vay, 
Surely a precious thing, one worthy note, 
Should thus be lost forever from the earth, 
Which might have pleas'd the eyes of many men. 
What good should follow this, if this were done? 
What harm, undone? deep harm to disobey, 
Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. 
Were it well to obey then, if a king command 
An act unprofitable, against himself ? 
The king is sick, and knows not what he does. 
What record, or what relic of my lord 
Should be to aftertime, but empty breath 
And rumors of a doubt? but were this kept, 
Stor'd in some treasure-house of mighty kings. 
Some one might show it at a joust of arms. 
Saying, ' King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, 
Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake. 
Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps 
Upon the hidden bases of the hills.' 
So might some old man speak in the aftertime 
To all the people, winning reverence. 
But now much honor and much fame were lost." 
So spake he, clouded with his own conceit. 
And hid Excalibur the second time, 
And so strode back slow to the wounded King. 

Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily: 
« What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard? " 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: 
*' I heard the ^vater lapping on the crag, 
And the long ripple washing in the reeds." 
To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath: 
*' Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue. 



192 MORTE D' ARTHUR. 



Unknightly, traitor-hearted ! Woe is me ! 

Authority forgets a dying king, 

Laid widow'd of the power in his eye 

That bow'd the will. I see thee what thou art, 

For thou, the latest left of all my knights, 

In whom should meet the offices of all. 

Thou wouldst betray me for tJie precious hilt; 

Either from lust of gold, or like a girl 

Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. 

Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice, 

And the third time may prosper, get thee hence* 

But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur, 

I will arise and slay thee with my hands." 

Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran, 
And leaping down the ridges lightly, plung'd 
Among the bulrush-beds, and clutch'd the sword. 
And strongly wheel'd and threw it. The great brand 
Made lightnings in the splendor of the moon. 
And flashing round and round, and whirled in an arch. 
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, 
Seen where the moving isles of winter shock 
By night, ^vith noises of the northern sea. 
So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur: 
But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm 
Cloth'd in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 
And caught himx by the hilt, and brandish'd him 
Three times, and drew him undei' in the mere. 
And lightly v/ent the other to the king. 

Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath: 
" Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. 
Speak out: what is it thou hast heard or seen?" 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: 
" Sir King, I clos'd mine eyelids, lest the gems 
Should blind my purpose, for I never saw. 
Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die, 
Not tho' I live three lives of mortal men. 
So great a miracle as yonder hilt. 
Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him; 
But when I look'd again, behold an arm, 
Cloth'd in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 
That caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him 
Three times, and drew him under in the mere." 




*' But Avhen I look'd again, behold an arm, 
Cloth'd in white samite, mjstic, wonderful, 
That caught him hy the hilt, and brandish'd him." 



MORTE n ARTHUR. 193 



And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard : 
" My end draws nigh, 'tis time that I were gone. 
Make broad thy shoulders to receive my \veight. 
And bear me to the margin; yet I fear 
]My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die." 

So saying, from the pavement he half rose. 
Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm. 
And looking wistfuU}^ witii wide blue eyes 
As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere 
Remorsefully regarded thro' his tears, 
And would have spoken, but he found not words, 
Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee. 
O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands. 
And rising bore him thro' the place of tombs. 

But, as he walk'd, King Arthur panted hard, 
Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed 
When all the house is mute. So sigh'd the King, 
Muttering and murmuring at his ear " Quick, quick! 
I fear it is too late, and I shall die." 
But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge, 
Cloth'd with his breath, and looking, as he walk'd, 
Larger than human on the frozen hills. 
He heard the deep behind him, and a cry 
Before. His own thought drove him like a goad. 
Dry clash'd his harness. in the icy caves 
And barren chasms, and all to left and right 
The bare black cliff clang'd round him, as he based 
His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang 
Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels — 
And on a sudden, lo! the level lake. 
And the long glories of the winter moon. 

Then saw they how^ there hove a dusky barge 
Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern, 
Beneath them; and descending they were ware 
That all the decks v^ere dense with stately forms 
Black-stol'd, black-hooded, like a dream — by these 
Three Queens with crowns of gold — and from them rose 
A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars, 
And, as it were one voice, an agony 
Of lamentation, like a wink, that shrills 
All night in a waste land, where no one comes, 
Or hath come, since the making of the world. 



13 



194 



MORTE D' ARTHUR. 



Then murmur'd Arthur, " Place me in the barge," 
And to the barge they came. There those three Queens 
Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept. 
But she that rose the tallest of them all 
And fairest, laid his head upon her lap. 
And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands, 




And call'd him by his name, complaining loud. 
And dropping bitter tears against his brow. 
Striped with dark blood : for all his face was white 
And colorless, and like the wither'd moon 
Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east; 



MORTE D' ARTHUR. 195 



And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops 

Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls — 

That made his forehead like a rising sun 

High from the dais-throne — were parch'd with dust; 

Or, clotted into points and hanging loose, 

Mix'd with the knightly growth that fring'd his lips. 

So like a shatter'd column lay the King; 

Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest, 

From spur to phune a star of tournament, 

Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charg'd 

Before the eyes of ladies and of Kings. 

Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere, 
" Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go? 
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes? 
For now I see the true old times are dead. 
When every morning brought a noble chance, 
And every chance brought out a noble knight. 
Such times have been not since the light hath led 
Tlje holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. 
But now the whole round table is dissolv'd 
Which was an image of the mighty world ; 
And I, the last, go forth companionless, 
And the days darken round me, and the years, 
Among new men, strange faces, other minds." 

And slowly answer'd Arthur from the barge; 
" The old order changeth, yielding place to new. 
And God fulfils himself in many ways. 
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? 
I have lived my life, and that which I have done 
May He within himself make pure! but thou. 
If thou shouldst never see my face again, 
Pray for my soul, more things are wrought by prayer 
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice 
Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
For what are men better than sheep or goats 
That nourish a blind life within the brain. 
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
Both for themselves and those who call them friend? 
For so the whole round earth is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 
But now farewell. I am going a long way 
With these thou seest — if indeed I go — 



196 MORTE D' ARTHUR. 



(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) 
To the island-valley of Avilion ; 
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any sno^v, 
Nor ever wind blows loudly ; but it lies 
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns 
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea. 
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound=" 

So said he, and the barge with oar and sail 
Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan- 
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death. 
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood 
With swarthy^ webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere 
Revolving many memories, till the hull 
Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn, 
And on the mere the waiUngr died awav. 



Here ended Hall, and our last light, that long 
Had Avink'd and threaten'd darkness, flared and fell; 
At which the Parson, sent to sleep with sound. 
And waked with silence, gruntevl " Good I " but we 
Sat rapt: it was the tone with which he read — 
Perhaps some modern touches here and there 
Redeem'd it from the charge of nothingness — 
Or else we lov'd the man, and prized his work; 
I know not: but we sitting, as I said, 
The cock crew loud; as at that time of year 
The lusty bird takes ever\' hour for dawn : 
Then Francis, muttering, like a man ill-used, 
" There now — that's nothing I " drew a little back. 
And drove his heel into the smoulder'd log. 
That sent a blast of sparkles up the flue: 
And so to bed ; where yet in sleep I seem'd 
To sail with Arthur under looming shores. 
Point after point; till on to dawn, when dreams 
Begin to feel the truth and stir of day, 
To me, methought, ^vho waited ^vith a crowd. 
There came a bark that, blowing forward, bore . 
King Arthur, like a modern gentleman 
Of stateliest port; and all the people cried, 
"Arthur is come asfain : he cannot die." 



THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER. 



197 



Then those that stood upon the hills behind 
Repeated — "Come again, and thrice as fair;" 
And, further inland, voices echoed — " Come 
With all good things, and war shall be no more." 
At this a hundred bells began to peal. 
That with the sound I woke, and heard indeed 
The clear church-bells rincrin the Christmas morn. 



THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER; 



OR, THE PICTURES. 




HIS morning is the morning of the day, 
When I and Eustace from the city went 
To see the Gardener's Daughter; I and he, 
Brothers in Art; a friendship so complete 
Portion'd in halves between us, that we grew 
The fable of the city where we dwelt. 

My Eustace might have sat for Hercules; 

So muscular he spread, so broad of breast. 

He, by some law that holds in love, and draws 

The greater to the lesser, long desir'd 

A certain miracle of symmetry, 

A miniature of loveliness, all grace 
7. Summ'd up and closed in little; — Juliet, she 

So light of foot, so light of spirit — -oh, she 

To me myself, for some three careless moons, 
■£^'~ The summer pilot of an emptv heart 
Unto, the shores of nothing! Know you not 
Such touches are but embassies of love. 
To tamper ^vith the feelings, ere he found 
Empire for life? but Eustace painted her, 
And said to me, she sitting with us then, 
"When \N\\\you paint like this?" and I replied, 
(My words were half in earnest, half in jest,) 
« 'Tis not your work, but Love's. Love, unperceiv'd, 
A more ideal Artist he than all, 



198 THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER; 

Came, drew your pencil from you, made those eyes 
Darker than darkest pansies, and that hair 
More black than ash-buds in the front of March." 
And Juliet answer'd laughing-, " Go and see 
The Gardener's daughter: trust me, after that, 
You scarce can fail to match his masterpiece." 
And up we rose, and on the spur we went. 

Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite 
Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love. 
News from the humming city comes to it 
In sound of funeral or of marriage bells; 
And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear 
The windy clanging of the minster clock; 
Although between it and the garden lies 
A league of grass, w^ash'd by a slow, broad stream. 
That, stirr'd with languid pulses of the oar. 
Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on, 
Barge-laden, to three arches of a briden 
Crown'd with the minster towers. 

The fields between 
Are dewy-fresh, brows'd by deep-udder'd kine, 
And all about the large lime feathers low, 
The lime a summer home of murmurous wings. 

In that still j^lace she, hoarded in herself, 
Grew, seldom seen : not less among us lived 
Her fame from lip to lip. Who had not heard 
Of Rose, the Gardener's daughter? Where was he 
So blunt in memory, so old at heart. 
At such a distance from his youth in grief. 
That, having seen, forgot? The common mouth 
So gross to express delight, in praise of her 
Grew oratory. Such a lord is Love, 
And Beauty such a mistress of the world. 

And if I said that Fancy, led by Love, 
Would play with flying forms and images, 
Yet this is also true, that, long before 
I look'd upon her, when I heard her name 
My heart was like a prophet to iny heart 
And told me I should love. A crowd of hopes 
That sought to show themselves like winged seeds, 
Born out of everything I heard and saw, 



OR, THE PICTURES. 199 



Flutter'd about my senses and my soul; 
And vague desires, like fitful blasts of balm, 
To one that travels quickly, made the air 
Of Life delicious, and all kinds of thought, 
That verg'd upon them, sweeter than the dream 
Dream'd by a happy man, when the dark East, 
Unseen, is bright'ning to his bridal morn. 

And sure this orbit of the memory folds 
Forever in itself the day we went 
To see her. All the land in flowery squares 
Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind, 
Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud 
Drew downward ; but all else of Heaven was pure 
Up to the sun, and May from verge to verge. 
And May with me from head to heel. And now, 
As tho' 'twere yesterday, as tho' it were 
The hour just flown, that morn with all its sound, 
(For those old Mays had thrice the life of these,) 
Rings in mine ears. The steer forgot to graze, 
And, where the hedgerow cuts the pathway, stood, 
Leaning his horns into the neighbor field, 
And lowing to his fellows. From the woods 
Came voices of the well-contented doves. 
The lai k could scarce get out his notes for joy 
But shook his song together as he near'd 
His happy home, the ground. To left and right, 
The cuckoo told his name to all the hills; 
The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm ; 
The redcap whistled; and the nightingale 
Sang loud, as tho' he were the bird of day. 

And Eustace turn'd, and smiling said to me, 
" Hear how the bushes echo! by my life, 
These birds have joyful thoughts. Think you they sing 
Like poets, from the vanity of song? 
Or have they any sense of w^hy they sing? 
And would they praise the heavens for what they have?" 
And I made answer, " Were there nothing else 
For which to praise the heavens but only love, 
That only love were cause enough for praise." 

Lightly he laugh'd, as one that read my thought, 
And on we went; but ere an hour. had pass'd. 



200 



THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER, 



We reacii'd a meadow slanting to the North; 
Down which a well-worn pathway courted us 
To one green wicket in a privet hedge; 
This, yielding, gave into a grassy walk 
Thro' crowded lilac-ambush trimly pruned; 
And one warm gust, full-fed with perfume, blew 
Beyond us, as we enter'd in the cool. 
The garden stretches southward. In the midst 
A cedar spread his dark-green layers of shade. 
The garden-e^lasses shone, and momently 
The twinkling laurel scatter'd silver lights. 

" Eustace," I said, " this wonder keeps the house." 
He nodded, but a moment afterwards 
He cried, " Look! look I" Before he ceased I turn'd, 
And, ere a star can wink, beheld her there. 







For up the porch there grew an Eastern rose, 
That, flowering high, the last night's gale had caught, 
And blown across the walk. One arm aloft — 
Gown'd in pure white, that fitted to the shape — 






M 




%V 



./^ 



u,! 




*'Ah, one rose, 
One rose, but one, hy those fair fingers cull'd" 



I 



OR, THE PICTURES. 201 



Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood. 

A single stream of all her soft brown hair 

Pour'd on one side: the shadow of the flowers 

Stole all the golden gloss, and, wavering 

Lovingly lower, trembled on her waist — 

Ah! hajDpy shade — and still went wavering down, 

But, ere it touch'd a foot, that might have danced 

The greensward into greener circles, dipt, 

And mix'd with shadows of the common ground! 

But the full day dwelt on her brows, and sunn'd 

Her violet eyes, and all her Hebe-bloom, 

And doubled his own warmth against her lips, 

A)id on the bounteous wave of such a breast 

As never pencil drew. Half light, half shade, 

She stood, a sight to make an old man young. 

So rapt, we near'd the house; but she, a Rose 
/n roses, mingled with her fragrant toil. 
Nor heard us come, nor from her tendance turn'd 
Into the v^orld writhout; till close at hand. 
And almost ere I knew mine own intent, 
This murmur broke the stillness of that air 
Which brooded round about her: 

" Ah, one rose, 
One rose, but one, by those fair Angers cull'd, 
Were worth a hundred kisses press'd on lips 
Less exquisite than thine." 

She look'd : but all 
SufFus'd with blushes — neither self-possess'd 
Nor startled, but betwixt this mood and that, 
Divided in a graceful quiet — paused. 
And dropt the branch she held, and turning, wound 
Her looser hair in braid, and stirred her lips 
For some sweet answer, tho' no answer came, 
Nor yet refus'd the rose, but granted it, 
And moved away, and left me, statue-like. 
In act to render thanks. 

I, that whole day, 
Saw her no more, altho' I linger'd there 
Till every daisy slept, and Love's white star 
Beam'd thro' the thicken'd cedar in the dusk. 

So home we went, and all the livelong way 
With solemn gibe did Eustace banter me. 
" Now," said he, " will you climb the top of Art. 



202 THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER; 

You cannot fail but work in hues to dim 
The Titianic Flora. Will you match 
My Juliet? you, not you, — the Master, Love, 
A more ideal Artist he than all." 

So home I went, but could not sleep for joy, 
Reading her perfect features in the gloom, 
Kissmg the rose she gave me o'er and o'er. 
And shaping faithful record of the glance 
That grac'd the giving — such a noise of life 
Swarm'd in the golden present, such a voice 
Call'd to me from the years to come, and such 
A length of bright horizon rimm'd the dark. 
And all that night I heard the watchmen peal 
The sliding season: all that night I heard 
The heavy clocks knolling the drowsy hours. 
The drowsy hours, dispensers of all good. 
O'er the mute city stole with folded wings, 
Distilling odors on ine as they went 
To greet their fairer sisters of the East. 

Love at first sight, first-born, and heir to all, 
Made this night thus. Henceforward squall nor storm 
Could keep me from that Eden where she dwelt. 
Light pretexts drew me: sometimes a Dutch love 
For tulips; then for roses, moss or musk, 
To grace my city rooms: or fruits and cream 
Served in the weeping elm; and more and more 
A word could bring the color to my cheek, 
A thought would fill my eyes with happy dew; 
Love trebled life within me, and with each 
The year increased. 

The daughters of the year 
One after one, thro' that still garden pass'd : 
Each garlanded with her peculiar flower 
Danc'd into light, and died Into the shade : 
And each in passing touch'd with some new grace 
Or seem'd to touch her, so that day by day, 
Like one that never can be wholly known, 
Her beauty grew, till Autumn brought an hour 
For Eustace, when I heard his deep " I will," 
Breath'd, like the covenant of a God, to hold 
From thence thro' all the worlds: but I rose up 
Full of his bliss, and following her dark eyes. 
Felt earth as air beneath me, till I reach'd 
The wicket-gate, and found her standing there. 



OR, THE PICTURES. 20B 



There sat we dov^^n upon a garden mound, 
Two mutually enfolded ; Love, the third, 
Between us, in the circle of his arms 
Enwound us both ; and over many a range 
Of waning lime the gray cathedral towers, 
Across a hazy glimmer of the west, 
Reveal'd their shining windows : from them clash'd 
The bells; we listened; with the time we play'd; 
We spoke of other things; we cours'd about 
The subject most at heart, more near and near, 
Like doves about a dove-cote, wheeling round 
The central wish, until we settled there. 

Then, in that time and place, I spoke to her, 
Requiring, tho' I knew it was mine own. 
Yet for the pleasure that I took to hear. 
Requiring at her hand the greatest gift, 
A woman's heart, the heart of her I loved; 
And in that time and place she answer'd me. 
And in the compass of three little words. 
More musical than ever came in one. 
The silver fragments of a broken voice, 
Made me most happy, faltering " I am thine." 

Shall I cease here? Is this enough to say 
That my desire, like all strongest hopes. 
By its own energy fulfiU'd itself. 
Merged in completion? Would you learn at full 
How passion rose thro' circumstantial grades 
Beyond all grades develop'd? and indeed 
I had not stayed so long to tell you all, 
But while I mused came Memory with sad eyes, 
Holding the folded annals of nny youth ; 
And while I mused, Love with knit brows went by, 
And with a flying finger swept my lips, 
And spake, " Be wise: not easily forgiven 
Are those, who, setting wide the doors that bar 
The secret bridal chambers of the heart. 
Let in the day." Here, then, my words have end. 

Yet might I tell of meetings, of farewells — 
Of that which came between, more sweet than each, 
In whispers, like the whispers of the leaves 
That tremble round a nightingale — in sighs 
Which perfect Joy, perplex'd for utterance. 



204 DORA. 



Stole from her sister Sorrow. Might I not tell 
Of difference, reconcilement, pledges given, 
And vows, where there was never need of vows, 
And kisses, where the heart on one wild leap 
Hung tranc'd from all pulsation, as above 
The heavens between their fairy fleeces pale 
Sow'd all their mystic gulfs with fleeting stars; 
Or wdiile the balmy glooming, crescent-lit. 
Spread the light haze along the river-shores, 
And in the hollows; or as once w^e met 
Unheedful, tho' beneath a whispering rain 
Night slid down one long stream of sighing wind, 
And in her bosom bore the baby. Sleep. 

But this whole hour your eyes have been intent 
On that veii'd picture — veil'd, for what it holds 
ISIay not be dwelt on by the common day. 
This prelude has j^i't^pared thee. Raise thy soul; 
Make thine heart ready with thine eyes; the time 
Is come to rise the veil. 

Behold her there. 
As I belield her ere she knew" my heart, 
My first, last love; the idol of my youth. 
The darling of my manhood, and, alas! 
Now the most blessed memorv of mine ao^e. 



DORA. 



fV'wmx ITH farmer Allan at the farm abode 



111 



^ju William and Dora. William was his son, 



§>^v^ * And she his niece. He often look'd at them, 
l^^-'And often thought " I'll make them man and wifco" 
^'^ Now Dora felt her uncle's will in all, 

^ And yearn'd towards William ; but the youth, because 

He had been always with her in the house, 

Thouo-ht not of Dora. 



DORA. 



205 



Then there came a day 
When Allan call'd his son, and said : " My son : 
I married late, but I would wish to see 
My grandchild on my knees befoie I die: 
And I have set my heart upon a match. 
Now therefore look to Dora; she is well 
To look to; thrifty too beyond her age. 
She is my brother's dauglitcr: he and I 
Had once hard words, and parted, and he died 
In foreign lands; but for his sake I bred 
His daughter Dora; take her for your wife; 
For I have wished this marriage night and day, 
For many years." But William answered short; 
" I cannot marry Dora; by my life, 




I will not marry Dora." Then the old man 
Was wroth, and doubled up his hands, and said: 
" You will not, boy! you dare to answer thus! 
But in my time a father's word was law, 
And so it shall be now for mco Look to its 



206 DORA. 



Consider, William : take a month to think 
And let me have an answer to my wish; 
Or, by the Lord that made me, you shall pack, 
And never more darken my doors again." 
But William answered madly; bit his lips, 
And broke away. The more he look'd at her 
The less he liked her: and his ways were harsh; 
But Dora bore them meekly. Then before 
The month was out he left his father's house, 
And hired himself to work within the fields; 
And half in love, half spite, he woo'd and wed 
A laborer's daughter, Mary Morrison. 

Then, when the bells were ringing, Allan call'd 
His niece and said: " My girl, I love you well: 
But if you speak ^vitli him that vs^as my son. 
Or change a word with her he calls his \vife, 
My home is none of yours. My will is law." 
And Dora promised, being meek. She thought, 
" It cannot be: my uncle's mind will change! " 

And days went on, and there w^as born a boy 
To W^illiam; then distresses came on him; 
And day by day he pass'd his father's gate. 
Heart-broken, and his father help'd him not. 
But Dora stored what little she could save. 
And sent it them by stealth, nor did they know 
Who sent it; till at last a fever seized 
On William, and in harvest time he died. 

Then Dora went to Mary. Mary sat 
And look'd with tears upon her boy, and thought 
Hard things of Dora. Dora came and said : 
" I have obeyed my uncle until now. 
And I have sinn'd, for it was all thro' me 
This evil came on William at the first. 
But, Mary, for the sake of him that's gone. 
And for your sake, the woman that he chose. 
And for this orphan, I am come to you: 
You know there has not been for these five years 
So full a harvest: let me take the boy. 
And I will set him in my uncle's eye 
Among the wheat; that when his heart is glad 



DORA. 207 

Of the full harvest, he may see the boy, 

And bless him for the sake of him that's gone." 

And Dora took the child, and went her way 
Across the wheat, and sat upon a mound 
That was unsown, where many poppies grew. 
Far off the farmer came into the field 
And spied her not; for none of all his men 
Dare tell him Dora waited with the child; 
And Dora would have risen and gone to him, 
But her heart fail'd her; and the reapers reap'd, 
And the sun fell, and all the land was dark. 

But when the morrow came, she rose and took 
The child once more, and sat upon the mound; 
And made a little wreath of all the flowers 
That grew about, and tied it round his hat 
To make him pleasing in her uncle's eye. 
Then when the farmer j^ass'd into the field 
He spied her, and he left his men at work, 
And came and said: "Where w^ere you yesterday? 
Whose child is that! What are you doing here.? " 
So Dora cast her eyes upon the ground. 
And answer'd softly, " This is William's child ! " 
*' And did I not," said Allan, " did I not 
Forbid you, Dora?" Dora said again, 
" Do with me as you will, but take the child 
And bless him for the sake of him that's gone! " 
And Allan said, " I see it is a trick 
Got up betwixt you and the woman there. 
I must be taught my duty, and by you ! 
You knew my word was law, and yet you dared 
To slight it. Well — for I will take the boy; 
But go you hence, and never see me more." 
So saying, he took the boy, that cried aloud 
And struggled hard. The wreath of flowers fell 
At Dora's feet. She bow'd upon her hands. 
And the boy's cry came to her from the field. 
More and more distant. She bow'd down her head, 
Remembering the day v^hen first she came. 
And all the things that had been. She bow'd down 
And wept in secret; and the reapers reap'd, 
And the sun fell, and all the land was dark. 



208 DORA, 



Then Dora went to Mary's house, and stood 
Upon the threshold. Mar)^ saw the boy 
Was not with Dora. She broke out in praise 
To God, tiiat help'd her in her wddowhood. 
And Dora said, " My uncle took the boy; 
But Mary, let me live and work with you: 
He says that he will never see me more." 
Then answer'd Mary, " This shall never be. 
That thou shouldst take my trouble on thyself: 
And, now I think, he shall not have the boy. 
For he will teach him hardness, and to slight 
His mother; therefore thou and I will go 
And I will have my boy, and bring him home; 
And I will beg of him to take thee back; 
But if he will not take thee back again. 
Then thou and I will live within one house. 
And work for William's child, until he grows 
Of age to help us." 

So the women kiss'd 
Each other, and set out, and reached the farm. 
The door was off the latch; they peep'd and saw 
The boy set up betwixt his grandsire's knees. 
Who thrust him in the hollows of his arm. 
And clapt him on the hands and on the cheeks. 
Like one that loved him ; and the lad stretch'd out 
And babbled for the golden seal that hung 
From Allan's watch, and sparkled by the fire. 
Then they came in: but when the boy beheld 
His mother, he cried out to come to her: 
And Allan set him down, and Mary said: 

" O Father — if you let me call 3'ou so — 
I never came a-be^ging for myself. 
Or William, or this child; but now I come 
For Dora: take her back: she lo\'es you well. 

Sir, when William died, he died at peace 
With all men; for I ask'd him, and he said, 
He could not ever rue his marr3ang me — 

1 had been a patient wife; but. Sir, he said 
That he \vas wrong to cross his father thus: 

' God bless him,' he said, ' and may he never know 
The troubles I have gone thro'! ' Then he turn'd 
His face and pass'd — unhappy that I am! 
But now. Sir, let me have my boy, for you 
Will make him hard, and he will learn to slight 



DORA. 



209 



His father's memory; and take Dora back, 
And let all this be as it was before." 



So Mary said, and Dora hid her face 
By Mary. There was silence in the room ; 
And all at once the old man burst in sobs : 

" I have been to blame — to blame. I have kill'd my son. 
I have kill'd him — but I lov'd him — my dear son. 
May God forgive me! — I have been to blame. 
Kiss me, my children." 




Then they clung about 
The old man's neck, and kiss'd him many times. 
And all the man was broken w^ith remorse; 
And all his love came back a hundred-fold 
And for three hours he sobb'd o'er William's child. 
Thinking of William. 

So those four abode 
Within one house together; and as time 
Went forward, Mary took another mate; 
But Dora lived unmarried till her death. 



14 



210 



AUDLET COURT. 



AUDLET COURT. 




HE Bull, the Fleece are cramm'd, and not a room 
For love or money. Let us picnic there 
At Audley Court." 

I spoke, while Audley feast 
Humm'd like a hive all round the narrow quay, 
?5 To Francis, with a basket on his arm, 
To Francis just alighted from the boat, 
And breathing of the sea. " With all my heart," 
Said Francis. Then we shoulder'd thro' the swarm. 
And rounded by the stillness of the beach 
To where the bay runs up its latest horn — 
We left the dying ebb that faintly lippVl 
The flat red granite; so by many a sweep 
Of meadow smooth from aftermath we reach'd 
The griffin-guarded gates, and pass'd thro' all 
The pillar'd dusk of sounding sycamores. 
And cross'd the garden to the gardener's lodge. 
With all its casements bedded, and its walls 
And chimneys muffled in the leafy vine. 



There, on a slope of orchard, Francis laid 
A damask napkin wrought with horse and hound. 
Brought out a dusky loaf that smelt of home. 
And, half-cut-down, a pasty costly made. 
Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay, 
Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks 
Imbedded and injellied ; last, with these, 
A flask of cider from his father's vats. 
Prime, which I knew; and so we sat and eat 
And talk'd old matters over: who was dead. 
Who married, who was like to be, and how 
The races went, and who would rent the hall; 
Then touch'd upon the game, how scarce it was 
This season ; glancing thence, discuss'd the farm, 
The four-field system, and the price of grain; 
And struck upon the corn-laws, where we split, 



AUDLET COURT. 211 



And came again together on the king 
With heated faces; till he laugh'd aloud; 
And, while the blackbird on the pippin hung 
To hear him, clapt his hand in mine and sang: • 

" O, who would fight and march and countermarch, 
Be shot for sixpence in a battle-field, 
And shovell'd up into a bloody trench 
Where no one knows? but let me live my life. 

" O, who would cast and balance at a desk, 
Perch'd like a crow upon a tliree-legg'd stool, 
Till all his juice is dried, and all his joints 
Are full of chalk ? but let me live my life. 

" Who'd serve the state? for if I carv'd my name 
Upon the cliffs that guard my native land, 
I might as well have trac'd it in the sands; 
The sea wastes all : but let me live rhy life. 

" O, who would love? I woo'd a woman once. 
But she was sharper than an eastern wind, 
And Jill mv heart turn'd from her, as a thorn 
Turns from the sea : but let me live my life." 

He sang his song, and I replied with mine: 
I found it in a volume, all of songs, 
Knock'd down to me, when old Sir Robert's pride. 
His books — the more the pity, so I said — 
Came to the hammer here in March — and this — 
I set the words, and added names I knew. 

"Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, sleep and dream of me, 
Sleep, Ellen, folded in thy sister's arm. 
And sleeping, haply dream her arm is mine. 

" Sleep, Ellen, folded in Emilia's arm ; 
Emilia, fairer than all else but thou, 
For thou art fairer than all else that is. 

" Sleep, breathing health and peace upon her breast : 
Sleep, breathing love and trust against her lip: 
I o-o to-night: I come to-morrow morn. 



212 



AUDLET COURT. 



" I go, but I return : I would I were 
The 2:)ilot of the darkness and the dl*eam, 
Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, love, and dream of me." 

So sang we each to either, Francis Hale, 
The farmer's son who lived across the bay. 
My friend; and I, that having wherewithal. 
And in the fallow leisure of my life. 
Did what I would : but ere the night we rose 
And saunter'd home beneath a moon, that, just 
In crescent, dimly rain'd about the leaf 
Twilights of airy silver, till we reach'd 
The limit of the hills; and as we sank 
From rock to rock upon the glooming quay. 
The town was hush'd beneath us; lower down 
The bay was oily-calm; the harbor-buo}- 
With one green sparkle ever and anon 
Dipt by itself, and we were glad at heart. 




\ 



WALKING TO THE MAIL. 213 




WALKING TO THE MAIL, 



HN I'm glad I walk'd. How fresh the meadows look 
Above the river, and but a month ago, 
M»& The whole hillside was redder than a fox, 
Is yon plantation w^here tliis by-way joins 
The turnpike? 

yames. Yes. 

yohn. And when does this come by? 

yames. The mail? At one o'clock. 
yohn. What is it now? 

yames. A quarter to. 

yohn. Whose house is that I see? 

No, not the County Member's with the vane: 
Up higher with the yew-tree by it, and half 
A score of gables. 

yames. That? Sir Edward Head's: 

But he's abroad: the place is to be sold. 
yohn. O, his. He was not broken. 
yaines. No, sir, he, 

Vex'd with a morbid devil in his blood 
That veil'd the world with jaundice, hid his face 
From all men, and commercing with himself. 
He lost the sense that handles daily life — 
That keeps us all in order more or less — 
And sick of home went overseas for change. 
yohn. And whither? 

yames. Nay, who knows? he's here and there. 
But let him go; his devil goes with him. 
As well as with his tenant, Jocky Daw^es. 
yohn. What's that? 

yanies. You saw the man — on Monday, was it? — 
There by the humpback'd willow ; half stands up 
And bristles; half has fallen and made a bridge; 
And there he caught the younker tickling trout — 
Caught injlagraiite — what's the Latin word ? — 
Delicto : but his house, for so they say. 
Was haunted with a jolly ghost, that shook 
The curtains, whined in lobbies, tapt at doors. 
And rummag'd like a rat: no servant stay'd : 
The farmer vext packs up his beds and chairs. 



214 WALKING TO THE MAIL. 

And all his household stuff: and with his boy 

Betwixt his knees, his wife upon the tilt, 

Sets out, and meets a friend who hails him. " What! 

You're flitting! " " Yes, we're flitting," says the ghost, 

(For they had pack'd the thing among the beds,) 

" O well," says he, " you flitting with us too — 

Jack, turn the horses' heads and home again." 

John. He left his wife behind; for so I heard. 

yames. He left her, yes. I met my lady once: 
A woman like a butt, and harsh as crabs. 

yohn. O yet but I remember, ten years back — • 
'Tis now at least ten years — and then she was — 
You could not light upon a sweeter thing: 
A body slight and round, and like a pear 
In growing, modest eves, a hand, a foot 
Lessening in perfect cadence, and a skin 
As clean and white as privet when it flowers. 

yames. Ay, ay, the blossom fades, and they that loved 
At first like dove and dove were cat and dog. 
She was the daughter of a cottager, 
Out of her sphere. What betwixt shame and pride, 
New things and old, himself and her, she sour'd 
To what she is: a nature never kind! 
Like men, like manners: like breeds like, they say. 
Kind nature is the best: those manners next 
That fit us like a nature second-hand; 
Which are indeed the manners of ,the great. 

yohn. But I had heard it was this bill that past. 
And fear of change at home, that drove him hence. 

yames. That was the last drop in his cup of gall. 
I once was near him, when his bailiff brought 
A Chartist pike. You should have seen him wince 
As from a venomous thing: he thought himself 
A mark for ail, and shudder'd, lest a cry 
Should break his sleep by night, and his nice eyes 
Should see the raw mechanic's bloody thumbs 
Sweat on his blazon'd chairs; but, sir, you know 
That these two parties still divide the world — 
Of those that want, and those that have: and still 
The same old sore breaks out from age to age 
With much the same result. Now T myself,. 
A Tory to the quick, was as a boy 
Destructive, when I had not what I would. 
I was at school — a college in the South: 
There lived a flavflint near- we stole his fruit. 



WALKING TO THE MAIL. 215 

His hens, his eggs; but tliere was law for us : 
We paid in person. He had a sow, sir. She, 
With meditative grunts of much content, 
Lay great with pig, wallov/ing in s*un and mud. 
By night we dragg'd her to the college tower 
From her warm bed, and up the corkscrew stair 
With hand and rope we haled the groaning sow, 
And on the leads we kept her till she pigg'd. 
Large range of prospect had the mother sow. 
And but for daily loss of one she lov'd, 
As one by one we took them — but for this — 
As never sow was higher in this world — 
Might have been happy: but what lot is pure? 
We took them all, till she was left alone 
Upon her tower, the Niobe of swine. 
And so return'd imfarrow'd to her sty. 

John. They found you out? 

James. Not they. 

Jo/m. Well— after all— 

What know we of the secret of a man? 
His nerves were wrong. What ails us, who are sound, 
That we should mimic this raw fool the world. 
Which charts us all in its course blacks or whites. 
As ruthless as a baby with a worm. 
As cruel as a school-boy ere he grows 
To Pity — more from ignorance than will. 

But put your best foot forward, or I fear 
That we shall miss the mail : and here it comes 
With five at top: as quaint a four-in-hand 
As you shall see — three piebalds and a roan. 




216 



ED WIX MORRIS; OR, THE LAKE. 




ED WIN MORRIS: OR, THE LAKE, 




I ME, my pleasant rambles by the lake, 

]My sweet, wild, fresh three-quarters of a year, 



My one Oasis in the dust and drouth 
"Of city life ! I was a sketcher then : 
See here, my doing: carves of mountain, bridge. 
Boat, island, ruins of a castle, built 
When men knew how to build, upon a rock 
With turrets lichen-gilded like a rock: 
And here, new-comers in an ancient hold, 
New-comers from the Mersey, millionaires. 
Here lived the Hills — a Tudor-chimney'd bulk 
Of mellow brickwork on an isle of bowers. 




W-''^ 0c.- 



" And now we left 
The clerk behind us, I and he, and ran. 
By ripply shallows of the lisping lake." 

See page 2ig. 



EDWIN MORRIS; OR, THE LAKE. 217 

O me, my pleasant rambles by the lake 
With Edwin Morris and with Edward Bull 
The curate; he was fatter than his cure. 

But Edw^in Morris, he that knew the names, . 
Long learn'd names of agaric, moss and fern, 
Who forg'd a thousand theories of the rocks. 
Who taught me how to skate, to row, to swim, 
Who read me rhymes elaborately good. 
His own — I call'd him Crichton, for he seem'd 
All-perfect, finishVl to the finger nail. 

And once I ask'd him of his early life, 
And his first passion; and he answer'd me; 
And well his words became him : was he not 
A full-cell'd honeycomb of eloquence 
Stored from all flowers? Poet-like he spoke. 

" My love for Nature is as old as I ; 
But thirty moons, one honeymoon to that. 
And three rich sennights more, my love for her. 
My love for Nature and my love for her. 
Of diflferent ages, like twin-sisters grew, 
Twin-sisters diflferently beautiful. 
To some full music rose and sank the sun. 
And some full music seem'd to move and change 
With all the varied changes of the dark. 
And either twilight and the day between; 
For daily hope fulfiU'd, to rise again 
Revolving toward fulfillment, made it sweet 
To walk, to sit, to sleep, to wake, to breathe." 

Or this or something like to this he spoke. 
Then said the fat-faced curate, Edward Bull, 
" I take it, God made the woman for the man. 
And for the good and increase of the world. 
A pretty face is well, and this is well. 
To have a dame indoors, that trims us up, • 
And keeps us tight; but these unreal ways 
Seem but the theme of writers, and indeed 
Worn threadbare. Man is made of solid stuff. 
I say, God made the woman for the man. 
And for the good and increase of the world." 



218 ED WIN MORRIS; OR, THE LAKE. 

"Parson," said I, " you pitch the pipe too low: 
But I have sudden touches, and can run 
My faith beyond my practice into his : 
Tho' if, in dancing after Letty Hill, 
I do not hear the bells upon my cap 
I scarce hear other music: yet say on. 
What should one give to light on such a dream? " 
I ask'd him half-sardonically. 

" Give ? 
Give all thou art," he answer'd-, and a light 
Of laughter dimpled in his swarthy cheek; 
" I would have hid her needle In my heart, 
To save her little finger from a scratch 
No deeper than the skin : my ears could hear 
Her lightest breath: her least remark was worth 
The experience of the wise. I went and came; 
Her voice fled always thro' the summer land ; 
I spoke her name alone. Thrice-happy days! 
The flower of each, those moments when we met, 
The crown of all, we met to part no more." 

Were not his words delicious, I a beast 
. To take them as I did? but something jarr'd; 
Whether he spoke too largely; that there seem'd 
A touch of something false, some self-conceit. 
Or over-smoothness: howsoe'er it was, 
He scarcely hit my humor, and I said: 

" Friend Edwin, do not think yourself alone 
Of all men happy. Shall not Love to me, 
As in the Latin song I learnt at school. 
Sneeze out a full God-bless-you right and left? 
But you can talk : yours is a kindly vein : 
I have, I think, — Heaven knows — as much within; 
Have, or should have, but for a thought or two. 
That like a purple beech among the greer;s 
Looks out of place: 'tis from no want in her: 
It is my shyness, or my self-distrust, 
Or something of a wayward modern mind 
Dissecting passion. Time will set me right." 

So spoke I knowing not the things that were. 
Then said the fat-faced curate, Edward Bull : 
" God made the woman for the use of man. 
And for the good and increase of the world." 



EDWIN MORRIS; OR, THE LAKE. 219 

And I and Edwin laugh'd ; and now we paus'd 
About the windings of the marge to hear 
The soft wind blowing over meadowy holms 
And alders, garden-isles; and now we left 
The clerk behind us, I and he, and ran 
By ripply shallows of the lisping lake. 
Delighted with the freshness and the sound. 

But, when the bracken rusted on their crags, 
My suit had wither'd, nipt to death by him 
That was a God, and is a lawyer's clerk. 
The rentroll Cupid of our rainy isles. 
'Tis true, we met; one hour I had, no more: 
She sent a note, the seal an Elle vous suit^ 
The close " Your Letty, only yours;" and this 
Thrice underscor'd. The friendly mist of morn 
Clung to the lake, I boated over, ran 
My craft aground, and heard with beating heart 
The Sweet-Gale rustle round the shelving keel: 
And out I stept, and up I crept: she moved. 
Like Proserpine in Enna, gathering flowers: 
Then low and sweet I whistled thrice: and she. 

She turn'd, we closed, we kiss'd, swore faith, I breathed 

In some new planet: a silent cousin stole 

Upon us and departed : " Leave," she cried, 

" O leave me! " " Never, dearest, never: here 

I brave the worst: " and whilst w^e stood like fools 

Embracing, all at once a score of pugs 

And poodles yell'd within, and out they came 

Trustees and Aunts and Uncles. " What, with him! " 

'• Go " (shrill'd the cotton-spinning chorus); " him! " 

I choked. Again they shriek'd the burthen — " Him ! " 

Again with hands of wild dejection " Go! — 

Girl, get you in !" She went — and in one month 

They wedded her to sixty thousand pounds, 

To lands in Kent and messuages in York, 

And slight Sir Robert with his watery smile 

And educated whisker. But for me. 

They set an ancient creditor to work : 

It seems I broke a close wnth force and arms: 

There came a mystic token from the king 

To greet the sheriff", needless courtesy — 

I read, and fled by night, and flying turn'd : 

Her taper glimmer'd in the lake below: 

I turn'd once more, close-button'd to the storm ; 



220 



EDWIN MORRIS; OR, THE LAKE. 



So left the place, left Edwin, nor have seen 
Him since, nor heard of her, nor cared to hear. 

Nor cared to hear? perhaps: 3-et long ago 
I have pardon'd little Lett}^; not indeed, 
It may be, for her own dear sake but this, 
She seems a part of those fresh days to me ; 
For in the dust and drouth of London life 
She moves among my visions of the lake 




While the prime swallow dips his v^^ing, or then 

While the gold-lily blows, and o^'erhead 

The light cloud smoulders on the summer crag. 



\ 



ST. SIMEON STTLITES. 



221 



ST. SIMEON STTLITES. 




LTHO' I be the basest of mankind, 
From scalp to sole one slough and crust of sin, 
Unfit for earth, unfit for heaven, scarce meet 
For troops of devils, mad v^^ith blasphemy, 
I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold 
p^s^^ Of saintdom, and to clamor, mourn, and sob, 
/ jT^Battering the gates of heaven with storms 
of prayer. 
Have mercy. Lord, and take away my sin. 

^ Let this avail, just, dreadful, mighty God, 

This not be all in vain, that thrice ten years. 
Thrice multiplied by superhuman pangs. 
In hungers and in thirsts, fevers and cold. 
In coughs, aches, stitches, ulcerous throes and cramps, 
A sign betwixt the meadow and the cloud, 
Patient on this tall pillai- 1 have borne 
Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and sleet, and snow ; 
And I had hoped that ere this period closed 
Thou wouldst have caught me up into thy rest, 
Denying not these weather-beaten limbs 
The meed of saints, the white robe and the palm. 



O take the meaning. Lord: I do not breathe. 
Not Avhisper any murmur of complaint. 
Pain heap'd ten-hundred-fold to this, were still 
Less burthen, by ten-hundred-fold, to bear. 
Than were those lead-like tons of sin, that crush'd 
My spirit flat before thee. 

O Lord, Lord, 
Thou knowest I bore this better at the first. 
For I was strong and hale of body then; 
And tho' my teeth, which now are dropt away, 
Would chatter with the cold, and all my beard 
Was tagg'd with icy fringes in the moon, 
I drown'd the whoopings of the owl with sound 
Of pious hymns and psalms, and sometimes saw 



222 ST. SIMEON STTLITES. 

An angel stand and watch me as I sang. 
Now am I feeble grown; my end draws nigh; 
I hope my end draws nigh: half-deaf I am, 
So that I scarce can hear the people lium 
About the column's base, and almost blind, 
And scarce can recognize the fields I know; 
And both my thighs are rotted with the dew. 
Yet cease I not to clamor and to cry, 
While my stiff spine can hold my weary head, 
Till all my limbs drop piecemeal from the stone, 
Have mercy, mercy: take away my sin. 

O Jesus, if thou wilt not save my soul. 
Who may be saved? who is it may be saved? 
Who may be made a saint, if I fail here? 
Show me the man hath suffered more than I. 
For did not all thy martyrs die one death? 
For either they were stoned, or crucified. 
Or burn'd in fire, or boil'd in oil, or sawn 
In twain beneath the ribs; but I die here 
To-day, and whole years long, a life of death. 
Bear witness, if I coukl have found a way 
(And heedfully I sifted all my thought) 
More slowly-painful to subdue this home 
Of sin, my flesh, which I despise and hate, 
I had not stinted practice. O my God. 

For not alone this pillar-punishment. 
Not this alone I bore : but while I lived 
In the white convent down the valley there. 
For many weeks about m_v loins I wore 
The rope that haled the buckets from the well, 
Twisted as tight as I could knot the noose; 
And spake not of it to a single soul, 
Until the ulcer, eating thro' my skin, 
Betray'd my secret penance, so that all 
My brethren marvell'd greatly. INIore than this 
I bore, whereof, O God, thou knowest all. 

Three winters, that my soul might grow to thee, 
I lived up there on yonder mountain side. 
My right leg chain'd into the crag, I lay 
Pent in a roofless close of rao^ffed stones; 
Inswath'd sometimes in wanderins^ mist, and twice 



S7\ SIM BOX STl'LTTES. 223 

Black'd with thy branding thunder, and sometimes 
Sucking the damps for drink, and eating not, 
Except the spare chance gift of those that came 
To touch my body and be heal'd, and live • 
And they say the^l that I work'd miracles. 
Whereof my fame is loud amongst mankind, 
Cured lameness, palsies, cancers. Thou, O God, 
Knowest alone whether this was or no. 
Have mercy, mercy; cover all my sin. 

Then, that I might be more alone with thee, 
Three years I lived upon a pillar, high 
Six cubits, and three years on one of twelve ; 
And twice three years I croucli'd on one that rose 
Twenty by measure; last of all, I grew. 
Twice ten long weary, weary years to this, 
That numbers forty cubits from the soil. 

I think that I have borne as much as this — 
Or else I dream — and for so long a time, 
If I may measure time by yon slow light, 
And this high dial, which my sorrow crowns — 
So much — even so. 

And yet I know not well. 
For that the evil ones come here, and sav, 
'• Fall down, O Simeon: thou hast suffer d long 
For ages and for ages I'' then thev prate 
Of penances I cannot have gone thro', 
Perplexing me with lies: and oft I fall, 
Mavbe for months, in such blind letharo-ies. 
That Heaven, and Earth, and Time are choked. 

But yet 
Bethink thee, Lord, while thou and all the saints 
Enjoy themselves in Heaven, and men on earth 
House in the shade of comfortable roofs. 
Sit with their wives by fires, eat wholesome food. 
And wear warm clothes, and even beasts have stalls, 
I 'rween the spring and downfall of the light, 
Bown down one thousand and two hundred times, 
To Christ, the Virgin Mother, and the Saints; 
Or in the night, after a little sleep, 
I wake: the chill stars sparkle; I am wet 
With drenching dews, or stiff with crackling frost, 
I w-ear an undress'd goatskin on mv back: 



224 ST. SIMEON STTLITES. 



A grazing iron collar grinds my neck; 
And in my weak, lean arms I lift the cross, 
And strive and wrestle with thee till I die: 
O mercy, mercy! wash away my sin. 

r 
O Lord, thou knowest what a man I am; 
A sinful man, conceiv'd and born in sin: 
'Tis their own doing; this is none of mine; 
Lay it not to me. Am I to blame for this, 
That here come those that worship me? Ha! ha! 
They think that I am somewhat. What am I? 
The silly people take me for a saint, 
And brino: me ofFerino^s of fruit and flowers: 
And T, in truth (thou wilt bear witness here) 
Have all in all endur'd as much, and more 
Than many just and holy men, whose names 
Are register'd and calendar'd for saints. 

Good people, you do ill to kneel to me. 
What is It I can have done to merit this! 
I am a sinner viler than you all. 
It may be I have wrought some miracles. 
And cured some halt and maim'd; but what of that? 
It may be, no one, even among the saints, 
May match his pains with mine; but what of that? 
Yet do not rise: for you may look on me. 
And in your looking you may kneel to God. 
Speak! is there any of you halt or maim'd? 
I think you know I have some power with Heaven 
From my long penance: let him speak his wish. 

Yes, I can heal him. Power goes forth from me. 
They say that they are heal'd. Ah, hark! they shout 
" St. Simeon Stylites." Why, if so, 
God reaps a harvest in me. O my soul, 
God reaps a harvest in thee. If this be, 
Can I work miracles and not be saved? 
This is not told of any. They were saints. 
It cannot be but that I shall be saved. 
Yea, crown'd a saint. They shout, " Behold a saint ! " 
And lower voices saint me from above. 
Courage, vSt. Simeon! This dull chrj^salis 
Cracks into shining wings, and hope ere death 
Spreads more and more and more, that God hath now 



ST. SIMEON STTLITES. 225 

Spong'd and made blank of crimeful record all 
My mortal archives. 

O my sons, my sons, 
I, Simeon of the pillar, by surname 
Stylites, among men; I, Simeon, 
The watcher on the column till the end ; 
I, Simeon, whose brain the sunshine bakes; 
I, whose bald brow^s in silent hours become 
Unnaturally hoar with rime, do now 
From my high nest of penance here proclaim 
That Pontius and Iscariot by my side 
Showed like fair seraphs. On the coals I lay, 
A vessel full of sin : all hell beneath 
Made me boil over. Devils pluck'd my sleeve; 
Abaddon and Asmodeus caught at me. 
I smote them w^ith the cross; the}^ swarm'd again. 
In bed like monstrous apes they crush'd my chest: 
They flapp'd my light out as I read : I saw 
Their faces grow between me and my book: 
With colt-like whinny and with hoggish whine 
They burst my prayer. Yet this way was left, 
And by this way I 'scaped them. Mortif)^ 
Your flesh, like me, with scourges and with thorns; 
Smite, shrink not, spare not. If it may be, fast 
Whole Lents, and pray. I hardlv, with slow steps. 
With slow, faint steps, and much exceeding pain. 
Have scrambled past those joits of fire, that still 
Sing in mine ears. But yield not me the praise: 
God only thro' his bounty hath thought fit. 
Among the powers and princes of this world. 
To make me an example to mankind. 
Which few can reach to. Yet I do not say 
But that a time may come — yea, even now. 
Now, now, his footsteps smite the threshold stairs 
Of life — I say, that time is at the doors 
When 3^ou may worship me ^vithout reproach; 
For I will leave my relics in your land, 
♦ And you may carve a shrine about my dust. 

And burn a fragrant lamp before my bones. 
When I am gather'd to the glorious saints. 

While I spake then, a sting of shrewdest pain 
Ran shrivelling thro' me, and a cloud-like change. 
In passing, with a grosser film made thick 
These heavy, horny eyes. The end! the end! 
14 



226 ST. SIMEON STTLITES. 



Surely the end! What's here? a shape, a shape, 

A flash of light. Is that the angel there 

That holds a crown? Come, blessed brother, come. 

I know thy glittering face. I waited long; 

My brows are ready. What! deny it now? 

Nay, draw, draw, draw nigh. So I clutch it. Christ! 

'Tis g-one: 'tis here ag-ain : the crown! the crown! 

So now 'tis fitted on and grows to me. 

And from it melt the dews of Paradise, 

Sweet! sweet! spikenard, and balm, and frankincense. 

Ah! let me not be fool'd, sweet saints: I trust 

That I am whole, and clean, and meet for Heaven. 

Speak, if there be a priest, a man of God, 
Among you theie, and let him presently 
Approach, and lean a ladder on the shaft. 
And climbing up unto my airy home. 
Deliver me the blessed sacrament; 
For by the warning of the Holy Ghost, 
I prophesy that I shall die to-night, 
A quarter before twelve. 

But thou, O Lord, 
Aid all this foolish people; let them take 
Example, pattern ; lead them to thy light. 




THE TALKING OAK. 



227 



THE TALKING OAK. 




NCE more the gate behind me falls; 

Once more before my face 
I see the moulder'd Abbey-walls, 

That stand within the chace. 



Beyond the lodge the city lies, 
Beneath its drift of smoke ; 
And ah! with what delighted eyes 
I turn to yonder oak. 

For when my passion first began. 
Ere that, \vhich in me burn'd. 

The love, that makes me thrice a man, 
Could hope itself return'd; 



To yonder oak within the field 

T spoke without restraint. 
And with a larger faith appeal'd 

Than Papist unto Saint. 

For oft I talk'd with him apart. 
And told him of my choice. 

Until he plagiarized a heart, 
And answer'd with a voice. 

Tho' what he whisper'd, under Heaven 
None else could understand; 

I found him garrulously given, 
A babbler in the land. 

But since I heard him make reply 

Is many a weary hour; 
'Twere well to question him, and try 

If yet he keeps the power. 



Hail, hidden to the knees in fern, 
Broad Oak of Sumner-chace, 



228 THE TALKING OAK. 



Whose topmost branches can discern 
The roofs of Sumner-place ! 



Say thou, whereon I carv'd her name, 

If ever maid or spouse. 
As fair as my Oh via, came 

To rest beneath thy boughs — 

" O Walter, I have shelter'd here 

Whatever maiden grace 
The good old Summers, year by year. 

Made ripe in Sumner-chace: 

Old Summers, when the monk was fat, 
And, issuing shorn and sleek, 

Would twist his girdle tight, and pat 
The girls upon the cheek, 

" Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's-pence, 
And number'd bead and shrift, 

BluiF Harry broke into the spence, 
And turn'd the cowls adrift : 

" And I have seen some score of those 
Fresh faces that would thrive 

When this man-minded offset rose 
To chase the deer at five; 

" And all that from the town would stroll, 
Till that wild wind made work 

In which the gloomy brewer's soul 
Went by me, like a stork : 

" The slight she-slips of loyal blood, 

And others, passing praise. 
Strait-laced, but all-too-full in bud 

For puritanic stays : 

" And I have shadovv'd many a group 

Of beauties that were born 
In tea-cup times of hood and hoop. 

Or while the patch was worn; 



THE TALKING OAK. 



229 



" And, leg and arm with love-knots gay, 

About me leap'd and laugh'd 
The modish Cupid of the day, 

And shrill'd his tinsel shaft. 

" I swear (imd else may insects prick 

Each leaf into a gall) 
This girl, for whom your heart is sick, 

Is three times worth them all; 

" For those and theirs, by Nature's law. 

Have faded long ago; 
But in these latter springs I saw 

Your own Olivia blow, 

" From when she gamboU'd on the greens, 
A baby-germ, to when 




The ir^aiden blossoms of her teens 
Could number five from ten. 



" I swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain, 
(And hear me with thine ears,) 



230 THE TALKING OAK. 



That, tho' I circle in tlie grain 
Five hundred rings of years — 

" Yet, since I first could cast a shade, 

Did never creature pass 
So slightly, musically made. 

So light upon the grass: 

" For as to fairies, that ^vill flit 
To make the greensward fresh, 

I hold them exquisitely knit. 
But far too spare of flesh." 

O hide thy knotted knees in fern. 

And overlook the chace; 
And from thy topmost branch discern 

The roofs of Sumner-place. 

But thou, whereon I carved her name, 
That oft has heard my vows, 

Declare when last Olivia came 
To sport beneath thy boughs. 

" O yesterday, you know, the fair 

Was holden at the town : 
Her father left his good arm-chair. 

And rode his hunter down. 

" And with him Albert came on his, 

I look'd at him with joy : 
As cowslip unto oxlip is. 

So seems she to the boy. 

" An hour had past — and, sitting straight 
Within the low-wheel'd chaise. 

Her mother trundl'd to the gate 
Behind the dappled grays. 

" But, as for her, she stay'd at home. 

And on the roof she went, 
And down the way 3^ou use to come 

She look'd with discontent. 



THE TALKING OAK. 



231 



" She left the novel half-uncut 

Upon the rosewood shelf; 
She left the new piano shut: 

She could not please herself. 

" Then ran she, gamesome as the colt, 

And livelier than a lark 
She sent her voice thro' all the holt 

Before her, and the park. 

" A light wind chas'd her on the wing, 

And in the chase grew wild, 
As close as might be would he cling 

About the darling child: 

" But light as anv wind that blows 

So fleetly did she stir. 
The flower, she touch'd on, dipt and rose, 

And turn'd to look at her. 

" And here she came, and round me play'd. 

And sang to me the w^hole 
Of those three stanzas that you made 

About my ' giant bole ; ' 

" And in a fit of frolic mirth 

She strove to span my waist: 
Alas, I was so broad of girth, 

I could not be embrac'd. 

" I ^sh'd myself the fair 3-oung beech 

That here beside me stands. 
That round me, clasping each in each, 

She might have lock'd her hands. 

" Yet seem'd the j^ressure thrice as sweet 

As woodbine's fragile hold. 
Or w^hen I feel about mv feet 

The berried briony fold." 

O muffle round thy knees \vith fern, 
And shadow Sumner-chace! 



232 



THE TALKING OAK. 



Long may thy topmost branch discern 
The roofs of Sumner-place! 

But tell me, did she read the name 

I carv'd with many vows 
When last with throbbing- heart I came 

To rest beneath thy bouohs? 




" O yes, she wander'd round and round 
These knotted knees of mine. 

And found, and kiss'd the name she found, 
And sweetly murmur'd thine. 



" A teardrop trembled from its source. 
And down my surface crept. 

My sense of touch is something coarse. 
But I believe she wept. 




" I see the moulder'd Abbey-walls.*' 

See page 22'j, 



THE TALKING OAK. 233 



" Then flushed her cheek with rosy light, 

She glanc'd across the plain; 
But not a creature \vas in sight: 

She kiss'd me once again. 

" Her kisses were so close and kind, 

That, trust me on my word, 
Hard wood I am, and wrinkled rind, 

But yet my sap was stirr'd; 

" And even into my inmost ring 

A pleasure 1 discern'd, 
Like those blind motions of the Spring, 

That show the year is turn'd. 

" Thrice happy he that may caress 

The ringlet's waving balm — 
The cushions of whose touch may press 

The maiden's tender palm. 

" I, rooted here among the groves. 

But languidly adjust 
My vapid vegetable loves 

With anthers and with dust: 

" For ah! my friend, the days were brief 

Whereof the poets talk, 
When that, which breathes within the leaf. 

Could slip its bark and walk. 

" But could I, as in times foregone. 
From spray, and branch, and stem, 

Have suck'd and gather'd into one 
The life that spreads in them, 

" She had not found me so remiss; 

But lightly issuing thro', 
I would have paid her kiss for kiss 

With usur}- thereto." 

O flourish high, with leafy towers, 
And overlook the lea. 



234 THE TALKING OAK. 



Pursue thy loves among the bowers, 
But leave thou mine to me. 



O flourish, hidden deep in fern. 

Old oak, I love thee well; 
A thousand thanks for what I learn 

And what remains to tell. 

" 'Tis little more ; the day was warm ; 

At last, tired out with play. 
She sank her head upon her arm, 

And at my feet she lay. 

" Her eyelids dropp'd their silken eaves. 

I breathed upon her eyes 
Thro' all the summer of my leaves 

A v/elcome mix'd with sighs. 

"I took the swarming sound of life — 

The music from the town — 
The murmurs of the drum and fife 

And luU'd them in my own. 

" Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip, 

To light her shaded eye; 
A second flutter'd round her lip 

Like a golden butterfly; 

" A third would glimmer on her neck 
To make the necklace shine; 

Another slid, a sunny fleck. 
From head to ankle fine. 

*' Then close and dark my arms I spread, 

And shadow'd all her rest — 
Dropt dews upon her golden head. 

An acorn in her breast. 

" But in a pet she started up, 
And pluck'd it out, and drew 

My little oakling from the cup, 
And flung him in the dew. 






-iS^ 



^^'^'^y^C^'Q: 






/ 

/- 










^ -. ^r\ ' -^ "^"^£^1. ' 


^ -c 


. ^iSG^^ V - 







• As when I see the woodman lift 
His axe to slav mv kin." 



THE TALKING OAK. 235 



" And yet it was a graceful gift — 

I felt a pang within 
As when I see the woodman lift 

His axe to slay my kin. 

" I shook him dov/n because he was 

The finest on the tree. 
He lies beside thee on the grass. 

O kiss him once for me. 

" O kiss him twice and thrice for me, 

That have no lips to kiss, 
For never yet was oak on lea 

Shall grow so fair as this." 

Step deeper yet in herb aiid fern. 
Look further thro' the chace, 

Spread upward till thy boughs discern 
The front of Sumner-place. 

This fruit of thine by Love is blest, 

That but a moment lay 
Where fairer fruit of Love may rest 

Some happy future day. 

I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice. 
The warmth it thence shall win 

To riper life may magnetize 
The baby-oak within. 

But thou, while kingdoms overset, 
Or lapse from hand to hand. 

Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet 
Thine acorn in the land. 

May never saw dismember thee. 

Nor wielded axe disjoint, 
That art the fairest-spoken tree 

From here to Lizard-point. 

O rock upon thy towery to]:> 
All throats that gurgle sweet! 



236 THE TALKING OAK. 



All starry culmination drop 
Balm-dews to bathe thy feet! 

All grass of silky feather grow — 
And while he sinks or swells 

The full south-breeze around thee blow 
The sound of minster bells. 

The fat earth feed thy branchy root, 

That under deeply strikes! 
The northern morning o'er thee shoot, 

High up, in silver spikes! 

Nor ever lightning char thy grain, 

But, rolling as in sleep, 
Low thunders bring the mellow rain, 

That makes thee broad and deep! 

And hear me swear a solemn oath, 

That only by thy side 
Will I to Olive plight my troth, 

And gain her for my bride. 

And when my marriage morn may fall, 

She, Dryad-like, shall wciir 
Alternate leaf and acorn-ball 

In wreath about her hair. 

And I will work in prose and rhyme. 
And praise thee more in both 

Than bard has honor'd beech or lime, 
Or that Thessalian growth. 



In which the swarthy ringdoves sat, 
And mystic sentence spoke; 

And more than England honors that, 
Thy famous brother-oak, 



Wherein the younger Charles abode 
Till all the paths were dim, 

And far below the Roundhead rode. 
And humm'd a surly hymn. 



LOVE AND DUTY. 



237 



LOVE AND BUTT, 




F love that never found his earthly close, 

What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts? 

Or all the same as if he had not been? 

Not so. Shall Error in the round of time 
Still father Truth ? O shall the braggart-shout 
For some blind glimpse of freedom, work itself 
Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law 

System and empire? Sin itself be found 

The cloudy jDorch oft opening on the sun ? 

And onl}^ he, this wonder, dead, become 

Mere highway dust! or year by year alone 

Sit brooding in the ruins of a life. 

Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself ! 

If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all, 
Better the narrow brain, the stony heart. 
The staring eye glaz'd o'er v/ith sapless days, 
The long mechanic pacings to and fro. 
The set gray life, and apathetic end. 
But am r not the nobler thro' thy love? 
O three times less unworthy! likewise thou 
Art more thro' Love, and greater than thy years. 
The sun will run his orbit, and the mioon 
Her circle. Wait, and Love himself will bring 
The drooping flower of knowledge chang'd to fruit 
Of wisdom. Wait: my faith is large in Time, 
And that which shapes it to some perfect end. 



Will some one say, then why not ill for good ? 
Why took ye not your pastime? To that man 
My work shall answer, since I knew the right 
And did it; for a man is not as God, 
But then most Godlike being most a man. 
— So let me think 'tis well for thee and me — 
111 fated that I am, what lot is mine 
Whose foresight preaches peace, my heart so slow 
To feel it! For how hard it seem'd to me. 



238 LOVE AND DUTY. 



When eyes, love-languid thro' half-tears, would dwell 

One earnest, earnest moment upon mine. 

Then not to dare to see ! when thy low voice, 

Faltering, would break its syllables, to keep 

My own fuU-tun'd, — hold passion in a leash, 

And not leap forth and fall about thy neck. 

And on thy bosom, (deep-desir'd relief!) 

Rain out the heavy mist of tears, that weigh'd 

Upon my brain, my senses, and my soul! 

For Love himself took part against himself 
To warn us oiF, and Duty lov'd of Love — 
Of this world's curse, — belov'd but hated — came 
Like Death betwixt th}' dear embrace and mine. 
And crying, "Who is this? behold thy bride," 
She push'd me from thee. 

If the sense is hard 
To alien ears, I did not speak to these — 
No, not to thee, but to myself in thee : 
Hard is my doom and thine : thou knowest it all. 

Could Love part thus? was it not well to speak, 
To have spoken once? It could not but be well. 
The slow sweet hours that bring us all things good, 
The slow sad hours that bring us all things ill. 
And all good things from evil, brought the night 
In which we sat together and alone. 
And to the want, that hollow'd all the heart, > 
Gave utterance by the yearning of an eye. 
That burn'd upon its object thro such tears 
As flow but once a life. 

The trance gave way 
To those caresses, when a hundred times 
In that last kiss, which never was the last. 
Farewell, like endless welcome, liv'd and died. 
Then foUow'd counsel, comfort, and the words 
That make a man feel strong in speaking truth; 
Till now the dark was worn, and overhead 
The lights of sunset and of sunrise mix'd 
In that brief night; the summer night, that paus'd 
Among her stars to hear us; stars that hung 
Love-charm'd to listen : all the wheels of Time 
Spun round in station, but the end had come. 



LOVE AND DUTT. 239 



O then like those, who clench their nerves to rush 
Upon their dissolution, v^e two rose. 
There — closing like an individual life — 
In one blind cry of passion and of pain. 
Like bitter accusation ev'n to death. 
Caught up the whole of love and utter'd it, 
And bade adieu forever. 

Live — yet live — 
Shall sharpest pathos blight us, knowing all 
Life needs for life is possible to will — 
Live happy; tend thy flowers; be tended by 
My blessing! Should my Shadow cross thy thoughts 
Too sadly for their peace, remand it thou 
For calmer hours to Memory's darkest hold. 
If not to be forgotten — not at once — 
Not all forgotten. Should it cross thy dreams, 
O might it come like one that looks content, 
With quiet eyes unfaithful to the truth, 
And point thee forward to a distant light, 
Or seem to lift a burthen from thy heart 
And leave thee freer, till thou wake refresh'd. 
When the low matin-chirp hath grown 
Full choir, and morning driv'n her plough of pearl 
Far furrowing into light the mounded rack. 
Beyond the fair green field and eastern sea. 




240 



THE GOLDEN TEAR. 



THE GOLDEN TEAR. 




ELL, 3^ou shall have that song which Leonard wrote 
It \Yas last summer on a tour in Wales: 
Old James was ^vith me : we that daj^ had been 
Up Snow^don, and I wish'd for Leonard there, 
And found him in Llamberis : then we crost 
Between the lakes, and clamber'd half way up 
The counter side; and that same song of his 
He told me; for I banter'd him, and swore 
They said he lived shut up within himself, " 
A tongue-tied Poet in the feverous days, 
That, setting the houo much before the liow^ 
Cry, like the daughters of the horse-leech, " Give, 
Cram us with all," but count not me the herd! 

To which " They call me what they will," he said; 
" But I was born too late : the fair new forms. 
That float about the threshold of an age. 
Like truths of Science waiting to be caught — 
Catch me who can, and make the catcher crown'd — 
Are taken by the forelock. Let it be. 
But if you care indeed to listen, hear 
These measured words, my work of yestermorn. 



" We sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move : 
The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun ; 
The dark Earth follows wheel'd in her ellipse; 
And human things returning on themselves 
Move onward, leading up the golden year. 

" Ah, tho' the times, when some new thought can bud, 
Are but as poets' seasons when they flower. 
Yet seas, that daily gain ujDon the shore, 
Have ebb and flow conditioning their march, 
And slow and sure comes up the golden year. 



" When wealth no more shall rest in mounded heaps 
But smit with freer light shall slowly melt 



THE GOLDEN TEAR. 241 



In many streams to fatten lower lands, 

And light shall spread, and man be liker man 

Thro' all the season of the golden year. 

" Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens i 
If all the world were falcons, v^hat of that? 
The wonder of the eagle were the less, 
But he not less the eagle. Happy days 
Roll onward, leading up the golden year. 




"Fly, happy happy sails and bear 'the Press; 
Fly happy with the mission of the Cross; 
Knit land to land, and blowing havenward 
With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toll. 
Enrich the markets of the golden year. 

" But we grow old. Ah! when shall all men's good 
Be each man's rule, and universal Peace 
Lie like a shaft of light across the land. 
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea. 
Thro' all the circle of the golden year?" 

Thus far he flow'd, and ended ; whereupon 
" Ah, folly ! " in mimic cadence answer'd James — 
" Ah, folly! for it lies so far away, 
Not in our time, nor in our children's time, 
'Tis like the second world to us that live; 
'Twere all as one to fix our hopes on Heaven 
As on this vision of the golden year." 



16 



'242 THE GOLDEN TEAR. 



AVith that he struck his staff against the rocks 
And broke it, — James, — you know him, — old, but full 
Of force and choler, and firm upon his feet. 
And like an oaken stock in ^vinter woods, 
O'erflourish'd with the hoary clematis : 
Then added, all in heat: 

" \N\-\ViX. stuff is this! 
Old ^vriters push'd the happy season back, — 
The more fools they, — we forward: dreamers both: 
You most, that in an age, when every hour 
Must sweat her sixty minutes to the death. 
Live on, God love us, as if the seedsman, rapt 
Upon the teeming harvest, should not dip 
His hand into the bag: but well I know • 

That unto him Avho \vorks, and feels he v/orks. 
This same grand year is ever at the doors." 

He spoke; and, high above, I heard them l)la^t 
The steep slate-quarry, and the great echo flap 
And buffet round the hills from bluff to bluff. 




mSiU 



-&^W^'^^^^^^^^' *> "- " '"v^r!*-^ 



UL rSSES. 



243 



UL rSSES. 





T little profits that an idle king, 
By this still hearth, among- these barren crags, 
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole 
Unequal laws unto a savage race. 
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know 

not me. 
I cannot rest frorn travel : I will drink 
Life to the lees : all times I have enjoy'd 

Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those 

That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when 

Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades 

Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; 

For always roaming with a hungry heart 

Much have I seen and know^n; cities of men 

And manners, climates, councils, governments, 

Myself not least, but honor'd of them all ; 

And drunk delight of battle w^ith m}^ peers, 

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. 

I am a part of all that 1 have met; 

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' 

Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades 

Forever and forever when I move. 

How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! 

As though to' breathe were life. Life piled on life 

Were all too little, and of one to me 

Little remains: but every hour is saved 

From that eternal silence, something more, 

A bringer of new things; and vile it were 

For some three suns to store and hoard mvself, 

And this gray spirit yearning in desire 

To follow knowledge, like a sinking star. 

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. 



This is my son, mxine own Telemachus, 

To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle 

Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil 
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild 



244 



UL I'SSES. 



A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees 

Subdue them to the useful and the good. 

Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere 

Of common duties, decent not to fail 

In offices of tenderness, and pay 

Meet adoration to m\' liousehold gods, 

When I am o;one. He ^vorks his work, I mine. 




There lies the port; the vessel pufFs her sail: 
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners. 
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me- 
That ever with a frolic welcome took 
The thunder and the sunshine, and oppos'd 
Free hearts, free foreheads — you and I are old ; 
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil ; 
Death closes all: but something ere the end, 



ULTSSES. 245 

Some work of noble note, may yet be done, 

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. 

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: 

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep 

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 

'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. 

Push off, and sitting well in order smite 

The sounding furrows, for my purpose holds . 

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 

Of all the western stars, until I die. 

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down : 

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, 

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew, 

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' 

We are not now that strength which in old days 

Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; 

One equal temper of heroic hearts. 

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 




COME NOT, WHEN I AM DEAD. 



OME not, when I am dead, 
'^f To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave, 



-^^^ To trample round my fallen head, 
dl^ And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save. 

O^ There let the wind sweep and the plover cry; 



But thou, go by. 

Child, if it were thy error or thy crime 
I care no longer, being all unblest: 

Wed whom thou wilt, but I am sick of Time, 
And I desire to rest. 

Pass on, weak heart, and leave me where I lie: 
Go by, go by. 



246 



LOCKSLET HALL. 



LOCKSLET' HALL, 



OMRADES, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early 

morn; 
Leave me here, and* when you want me, sound upon the 

bogle horn. 

'Tis the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews 

call, 
ams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall; 

Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandv tracts, 
hollow ocean ridges roaring into cataracts. 

^ht from yonder ivied casement, ere I w^ent to rest, 
on great Orion sloping slowly to the West. 



Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade. 
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid. 



Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime 
With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time; 

When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed ; 
When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed: 

When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see; 

Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be. 



In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast; 
In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest; 

In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove; 

In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. 




Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young. 
And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung. 



LOCKS LET HALL. 



247 



And I said, " Ms^ cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me, 
Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee." 




On her paUid cheek and forehead came a color and a light, 
As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night. 

And she turn'd — her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighj 
All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes — 



Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong;" 
Saying, " Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, " I have loved thee 
long." 

Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands' 
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. 

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might, 
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight. 



Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring, 
And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the fullness of the Spring. 



248 



LOCKS LEI"- HALL. 




Many an evening by the waters did we watch tlie stately ships, 
And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips. 

O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more! 
O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore! 

Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung. 
Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue! 

Is it well to wish thee happy? — having known me — to decline 
On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine! 

Yet it shall be: thou shalt lower to his level day by day, 

What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathize with clay. 



As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown, 

And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down. 



LOCKS LET HALL. 249 



He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, 
Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse. 

What is this? his eyes are heavy: think not they are glazed with wine. 
Go to him: it is thy duty: kiss him: take his hand in thine. 

It may be thy lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought; 

Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought. 

He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand — 
Better thou wert dead before me, tho' I slew thee with my hand ! 

Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart's disgrace, 
Roll'd in one another's arms, and silent in a last embrace. 

Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth! 
Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth! 

Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule! 
Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead of the fool! 

Well — 'tis well that I should bluster! — Hadst thou less unworthy proved- 
Would to God — for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved! 



Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit? 
I will pluck it from my bosom, tho' my heart be at the root. 

Never, tho' my mortal summers to such length of years should come 
As the many-winter'd crow that leads the clanging rookery home. 

Where is comfort? in division of the records of the mind? 
Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her, kind ? 

I remember one that perish'd: sweetly did she speak and move: 
Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to love. 

Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore? 
No — she never loved me truly: love is love forevermore. 

Comfort? comfort scorn'd of devils! this is truth the poet sings. 
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things. 



250 



LOCKSLET HALL. 



Drug thy memones, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof, 
In the dead unhappy night, when the rain is on the roof. 

Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall, 
Where the dying night-latnp flickers, and the shadows rise and falL 

Then a hand shall pass before thee, poiaring to his drunken slct-p, 
To thy widow'd marriage pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep. 

Thou shalt hear the " Never, aiever," whisper'd by the phantom years. 
And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears; 

And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain. 
Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow: get thee to thy rest again. 




Nay, but Nature brings thee solace : for a tender voice will cry 
'Tis a purer life than thine; a lip to drain thy trouble dry. 



LOCKSLET HALL. 201 



Baby lips will laugh me down: my latest rival brings thee rest. 
Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother's breast. 

O the child too, clothes the father with a dearness not his due, 
Half is thine and half is his: it will be worthy of the two. 

I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part. 

With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart. 

•' They were dangerous guides the feelings — she herself was not exempt- 
Truly, she herself had sufTer'd" — Perish in thy self-contempt! 

Overlive it — lower yet — be happy! wherefore should 1 care? 

1 myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair. 

What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these.? 
Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to golden keys. 

Every gate is throng'd ^vith suitors, all the markets overflow. 
I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I should do? 

I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground, 

Wlien the ranks are roil'd in vapor, and the winds are laid with sound. 

But the jingHng of the guinea helps the hurt that Honor feels, 
And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels. 

Can I but relive in sadness? 1 will turn that earlier page. 
Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous Mother- Age! 

Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife, 
When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life; 

Yeaniing for the large excitement that the coming years would vield, 
Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field. 

And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn, 
Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn; 

And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then, 
Underneath the light he boks at, in among the throngs of men; 



252 • LOCKSLET HALL. 



Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new: 
That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do; 

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see. 

Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; 

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails. 
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales ; 

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew 
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; 

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warnis 
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm; 

Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd 
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. 

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, 
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law. 

So I triumph'd, ere my passion sweeping thro' me left me dry. 
Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye; 

Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint. 
Science moves, but slowly, slowly, creeping on from point to point: 

Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher, 
Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire. 

Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs, 

And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns. 

What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys, 
Tho' the deep heart of existence beat forever like a boy's? 

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore. 
And the individual withers, and the world is more and more. 

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast, 
Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest. 



LOCKS LET HALL. 253 



Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn. 
They to whom my foolish passion \vere a target for their scorn: 

Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd string? 
I am sham'd thro' all my nature to have lov'd so slight a thing. 



Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's pleasure, woman's pain- 
Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallo^ver brain: 



Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine. 
Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine — ■ 

Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat 
Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat; 

Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr'd ; — 
I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's ward. 

Or to burst all links of habit — there to wander far away. 
On from island unto island at the gateways of the day. 

Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies. 
Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise. 

Never comes the trader, never floats a European flag. 

Slides the bird o'er lustrous v/oodland, swings the trailer from the crag; 

Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree — 
Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea. 

There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind. 
In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind. 

There the passions cramped no longer shall have scope and breathing-space ; 
I will take some savage w^oman, she shall rear my dusky race. 

Iron-jointed, supple-sinew'd, they shall dive, and they shall run. 
Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun; 

Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks, 
Not with blmded eyesight poring over miserable books — 



254 LOCKS LE 2' HALL. 



Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild, 
But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child. 

7, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains. 
Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast ^vith Jo\ver pains! 

Mated with a squalid savage — what to me were sun or clime? 
I, the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time — 

I, that rather held it better men should perish one by one. 

Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's moon in Ajalon! 

Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range. 
Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change. 

Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day; 
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. 

Mother- Age (for mine I knew not) help me as wlien life begun: 

Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the sun— 

O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set. 
Ancient founts of inspiration \vell thro' all my fancy yet. 

Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall! 
Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall. 

Comes a vapor from the margin, blackening over heath and holt. 
Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt. 

Let It fall on Locksle}^ Hall, \vith rain or hail, or fire or snow; 
For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go. 




GOD IV A. 



255 



GOBIVA. 





WAITED for the train at Coventry ; 

I hung ivith grooms and porters on the 

To watch the three tall spires ; and there I shafd 

The city''s aiicient legend ifito this : — 

Not only we, the latest seed of Time, 
New luen, that in the flying of a wheel 
Ciy down the past, not only we, that prate 
Of rights and wrongs, have lov'd the people well, 
And loath'd to see them overtax'd; but she 
Did more, and underwent, and overcame, 
The woman of a thousand summers back, 
Godiva, wife to that grim Earl, who rul'd 
In Coventry: for when he laid a tax 
Upon his town, and all the mothers brought 
Their children, clamoring, " If we pay, we starve! " 
She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode 
About the hall, among his dogs, alone. 
His beard a foot before him, and his hair 
A yard behind. She told him of their tears. 
And pray'd him, '^ If they pay this tax, they starve." 
Whereat he stared, replying, half-amaz'd, 
" You would not let your little finger ache 
F(n- such as these P^^ — " But I would die," said she. 
He laugh'd, and swore by Peter and by Paul ; 
Then fillipp'd at the diamond in her ear; 
« O ay, ay, ay, you talk?"—" Alas! " she said 
" But prove me what it is I would not do." 
And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand, 
" He answerVi, " Ride you naked thro' the town, 
And I repeal it;" and nodding, as in scorn. 
He parted, with great strides among his dogs. 



So left alone, the passions of her mind, 
As winds from all the compass shift and blow, 
Made war upon each other for an hour. 
Till pity won. She sent a herald forth. 
And bade him cry, with sound of trumpet, all 



256 



GOD IV A. 



The hard condition ; but that she would loose 
The people: therefore, as they lov'd her well, 
From then till noon no foot should pace the street, 
No eye look down, she passing; but that all 
Should keep within, door shut, and window barr'd. 




Then fled she to her inmost bovver, and there 
Unclasp'd the wedded eagles of her belt. 
The grim Earl's gift; but ever at a breath 
She linger'd, looking like a summer moon 
Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head. 
And shower'd the rippled ringlets to her knee; 
Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair 
Stole on, and like a creeping sunbeam, slid 
From pillar unto pillar, until she reach'd 
The gateway ; there she found her palfrey trapt 
In purple blazon'd with armorial gold. 



GonivA. 257 



Then she rode forth, cloth'd on with chastity: 
The deep air hsten'd round her as she rode, 
And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear. 
The little wide-mouth'd heads upon the spout 
Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur 
Made her cheek flame : her palfrey's footfall shot 
Light horrors thro' her pulses: the blind walls 
Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead 
Fantastic gables, crowding, stared : but she 
Not less thro' all bore up, till, last, she saw 
The Avhite-flower'd elder-thicket from the field 
Gleam thro' the Gothic archways in the wall. 

Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity : 
And one low churl, compact of thankless earth, 
The fatal by-word of all years to come, 
Boring a little auger hole in fear, 
Peep'd — but his eyes, before they had their will. 
Were shrivell'd into darkness in his head, 
And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait 
On noble deeds, cancell'd a sense misused ; 
And she, that knew not, pass'd : and all at once, 
With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon 
Was clash'd and hammer'd from a hundred towers. 
One after one : but even then she gain'd 
Her bower; whence reissuing, robed and crown'd, 
To meet her lord, she took the tax away. 
And built herself an everlasting name. 




258 



THE TWO VOICES. 



THE TWO VOICES. 




STILL small voice spake unto me, 
" Thou art so full of misery, 
Were It not better not to be ? " 

Then to the still small voice I said; 
" Let me not cast in endless shade 
What is so v^onderfuUy made." 



To \vhich the voice did urge reply: 

" To-day I saw^ the dragon-fly 

Come from the w^ells where he did lie. 

" An inner impulse rent the veil 
Of his old husk: from head to tail 
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail. 



" He dried his wings: like gauze they grew 
Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew 
A living flash of light he flew." 

I said, " When first the world began, 
Young Nature thro' five cycles ran, 
And in the sixth she moulded man. 

*' She gave him mind, the lordliest 
Proportion, and, above the rest, 
Dominion in the head and breast." 

Thereto the silent voice replied : 

" Self-blinded are you by your pride : 

Look up thro' night: the world is wide. 



" This truth within thy mind rehearse, 

That in a boundless universe 

Is boundless better, boundless worse. 



THE TWO VOICES. 259 



" Think you this mould of hopes and fears 
Could find no statelier than his peers 
In yonder hundred million spheres ? " 

It spake, moreover, in my mind, 

" Tho' thou wert scattered to the wind. 

Yet is there plenty of the kind." 

Then did my response clearer fall: 
" No compound of this earthly ball 
Is like another, all in all." 

To which he answer'd scoffingly: 
" Good soul! suppose I grant it thee 
Who'll weep for thy deficiency? 

" Or will one beam be less intense. 

When thy peculiar difference 

Is cancell'd in the world of sense? " 

I would have said, " Thou canst not know." 
But my full heart, that work'd below, 
Rain'd thro' my sight its overflow. 

Again the voice spake unto me : 
" Thou art so steep'd in misery. 
Surely 'twere better not to be. 

"• Thine anguish will not let thee sleep. 

Nor any train of reason keep: 

Thou canst not think, but thou wilt weep." 

I said, " The years with change advance : 
If I make dark my countenance, 
I shut my life from happier chance. 

" Some turn this sickness yet might take, 
Ev'n vet." But he: " What drug can make 
A wither'd palsy cease to shake ? " 

I wept, " Tho' I should die, I know 
That all about the thorn will blow 
In tufts of rosy-tinted snow ; 



260 THE TWO VOICES. 



" And men, thro' novel spheres of thought 
Still moving after truth long sought, 
Will learn new things v^hen I am not." 

" Yet," said the secret voice, " some time. 
Sooner or later, w^ill gray prime 
Make thy grass hoar w^ith early rime. 

" Not less swift souls that yearn for light. 

Rapt after heaven's starry flight. 

Would sweep the tracts of day and night. 

" Not less the bee would range her cells. 
The furzy prickle fire the dells, 
The foxglove cluster dappled bells." 

I said that "all the years invent; 
Each month is various to present 
The w^orld with some development. 

" Were this not well, to bide mine hour, 
Tho' watching from a ruin'd tower 
How grows the day of human power?'* 



" The highest-mounted mind," he said, 
" Still sees the sacred morning spread 
The silent summit overhead. 

" Will thirty seasons render plain 
Those lonely lights that still remain. 
Just breaking over land and main? 

" Or make that morn, from his cold crown 
And crystal silence creeping down. 
Flood v^^ith full daylight glebe and town? 

" Forerun thy peers, thy lime, and let 

Thy feet, millenniums hence, be set 

In midst of knowledge, dream'd not yet. 

" Thou hast not gained a real height. 
Nor art thou nearer to the light. 
Because the scale is infinite. 



THE TWO VOICES. 261 



" 'Twere better not to breathe or speak, 
Than cry for strength, remaining' weak, 
And seem to find, but still to seek. 



" Moreover, but to seem to find 

Asks what thou lackest, thought resign'd, 

A health}^ frame, a quiet mind." 

f 

I said, " When I am gone away, 
' He dared not tarr\-,' men \vill say, 
Doing dishonor to my clay." 

" This is more vile," he made reply, 

" To breathe and loathe, to live and sigh, 

Than once from dread of pain to die. 

" Sick art thou — a divided will 
Still heaping on the fear of ill 
The fear of men, a coward still. 

" Do men love thee? Art thou so bound 
To men, that how thy name may sound 
Will vex thee Iving' underground? 

" The memory of the wither'd leaf 
In endless time is scarce more brief 
Than of the garner'd Autumn-sheaf. 

" Go, vexed Spirit, sleep in trust; 
The right ear, that is fill'd with dust. 
Hears little of the false or just." 

" Hard task, to pluck resolve," I cried, 
" From emptiness and the waste wide 
Of that abyss, or scornful pride! 

" Nay — rather 3'et that I could raise 
One hope that warm'd me in the days 
While still I yearn'd for human praise. 

" When, wide in soul and bold of tongue. 
Among the tents I paus'd and sung 
The distant battle flash'd and rungr. 



262 THE TWO VOICES. 



" I sung the joyful Psean clear, 
And, sitting, burnish'd without fear 
The brand, the buckler, and the spear — 

" Waiting to strive a happy strife. 
To war with falsehood to the knife, 
And not to lose the good of life — ■ 

" Some hidden principle to move, 

To put together, part and prove, 

x\nd mete the bounds of hate and love — 

" As far as might be, to carve out 
Free space for every human doubt. 
That the whole mind might orb about — 

" To search thro' all I felt or saw. 
The springs of life, the depths of awe, 
And reach the law within the law: 

" At least, not rotting like a weed, 
But, having sown some generous seed, 
Fruitful of further thought and deed, 

"To pass, when Life her light withdraws. 
Not void of righteous self-applause, 
Nor In a merely selfish cause — 

" In some good cause, not in mine own, 
To perish, wept for, honor'd, known. 
And like a warrior overthrown; 

••' Whose e3^es are dim with glorious tears. 
When, soil'd with noble dust, he hears 
His country's war-song thrill his ears: 

" Then dying of a mortal stroke. 
What tim.e the foeman's line is broke. 
And all the war is roll'd in smoke." 

" Yea!" said the voice, " thy dream was good. 
While thou abodest in the bud. 
It was the stirring of the blood. 



THE TWO VOICES. 263 

"If Nature put not forth her power 
About the opening of the flower, 
Who is it that could Hve an hour? 

" Then comes the check, the change, the fall, 
Pain rises up, old pleasures pall. 
Thei'e is one remedy for all. 

" Yet hadst thou, thro' enduring pain, 
Link'd month to month with such a chain 
Of knitted purport, all were vain. 

" Thou hadst not between death and birth 
Dissolv'd the riddle of the earth. 
So were thy labor little worth. 

" That men with knowledge merely play'd. 
I told thee — hardly nigher made, 
Tho' scaling slow from grade to grade : 

'• Much less this dreamer, deaf and blind, 

Named man, may hope some truth to find. 

That bears relation to the mind. ' * 

•' For every worm beneath the moon 
Draws different threads, and late and soon 
Spins, toiling out his own cocoon. 

"Cry, faint not: either Truth is born 
Beyond the polar gleam forlorn. 
Or in the gateways of the morn. 

" Cry, faint not, climb: the summits slope 
Beyond the furthest flights of hope, 
Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope. 

" Sometimes a little corner shines. 

As over rainy mist inclines 

A gleaming crag with belts of pines. 

" I will go forward, sayest thou, 
I shall not fail to find her now. 
Look up, the fold is on her brow. 



264 THE TWO VOICES. 



" If straight thy track, or If obhque, 

Thou knowest not. Shadows thou dost strike, 

Embracing cloud, Ixion-hke; 

" And owning but a httle more 
Than beasts, abidest lame and poor, 
CaUing thyself a little lower 

" Than angels. Cease to wail and brawl! 
Why inch by inch to darkness crawl? 
There is one remedy for all." 

" O dull, one-sided voice," said I, 
" Wilt thou make everything a lie, 
To flatter me that I may die? 

" I know that age to age succeeds, 
Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, 
A dust of systems and of creeds. 

" I cannot hide th::t some have striven, 
Achieving calm, to \vhom was given 
The joy that mixes man wdth Heaven: 

" Who, ro^ving hard against the stream. 
Saw distant gates of Eden gleam, 
And did not dream it was a dream; 

" But heard, by secret transport led, 
Ev'n in the charnels of the dead. 
The murmur of the fountain-head — 

" Which did accomplish their desire, 
Bore and forebore, and did not tire, . 
Like Stephen, an unquenched fire. 

" He heeded not reviling tones, 

Xor sold his heart to idle moans, 

Tho' curs'd and scorn'd, and bruis'd with stones: 

" But looking upward, full of grace, 
He pray'd, and from a happy place 
God's glory sinote him on the face." 



THE TWO VOICES. 265 



The sullen answer slid betwixt: 

" Not that the grounds of hope were fix'd, 

The elements ^vere kindlier niix'd." 

I said, " I toil beneath the curse, 
But, knowing not the universe, 
I fear to slide from bad to ^vorse, 

" And that, in seeking to undo 
One riddle, and to find the true, 
I knit a hundred others new : 

" Or that this anguish fleeting hence, 
Unmanacled from bonds of sense, 
Be fixVl and froz'n to permanence: 

" For I gfo, weak from sufFerino- here: 
Naked I go, and void of cheer: 
What is it that I may not fear? " 

" Consider well," the voice replied, 

" His face, that two hours since hath died: 

Wilt thou find passion, pain, or pride? 

" Will he obey ^vhen one commands? 
Or answer should one press his hands? 
He answers not, nor understands. 

" His palms are folded on his breast: 
There is no other thing express'd 
But long disquiet merg'd in rest. 

" His lips are very mild and meek : 
Tho' one should smite him on the cheek, 
Or on the mouth, he will not speak. 

" His little daughter, whose sweet face 
He kiss'd, taking his last embrace. 
Becomes dishonor to her race — 

"His sons grow up that bear his name. 
Some grow to honor, some to shame, — 
But he is chill to praise or blame. 



266 7' HE TWO VOICES. 



" He will not hear the north-wind raAx^, 
Nor, moaning, houseliold shelter crave 
From winter rains tliat beat his grave. 

" High up the vapors fold and swim : 
About him broods the twilight dim : 
Tlie place he knew forgetteth him." 

" If all be dark, vague voice," I said, 

" These things are wrapped in doubt and dread. 

Nor canst thou show the dead are dead. 

" The sap dries up; the plant declines. 

A deeper tale my heart divines. 

Knovs^ I not Death.? the outward signs .f* 

" I found him when my years were few ; 
A shadow on the graves I knew. 
And darkness in the village yew. 

"From grave to grave the shadow crept: 
In her still place the morning wept: 
Touch'd by his feet the daisy slept. 

" The simple senses crown'd l^is head : 
' Omega! thou art Lord,' they said, 
' We find no motion in the dead.' 

" Why, if man rot in dreamless ease. 
Should that plain fact, as taught by these. 
Not make him sure that he shall cease.'' 

"• Who forged that other influence. 

That heat of inward evidence. 

By which he doubts against the sense? 

" He owns the fatal gift of eyes, 
That read his spirit blindly wise. 
Not simple as a thing that dies. 

" Here sits he shaping wings to fly: 
His heart forebodes a mystery : 
He names the name Eternity. 



THE TWO VOICES. ^67 



" That type of Pei'fect in hi> mind 
In Nature can he now^here find. 
He sows himself on every wind. 

"He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend, 
And thro' thick veils to apprehend 
A labor working to an end. 

" The end and the beginning vex 

His reason; many things j^erplex, 

With motions, checks, and counter-checks. 

" He knows a baseness in his blood 

At such strange war with something good. 

He may not do the thing he would. 

" Heaven opens inward, chasms yawai, 
Vast images in glimmering dawn, 
Half-shown, are broken and vs^ithdrawn. 

"Ah! sure within him and without. 
Could his dark wisdom find it out. 
There must be answer to his doubt. 

" But thou canst answer not again. 
With thine own weapon art thou slain. 
Or thou wilt answer but in vain. 

" The doubt would rest, I dare not solve 
In the same circle we revolve. 
Assurance only breeds resolve." 

As v^^hen a billow, blown against, 

Falls back, the voice with which I.fenc'd 

A little ceas'd, but recommenc'd: 

" Where v^ert thou when thy father play'd 
In his free field, and pastime inade, 
A merry boy In sun and shade? 

" A inerry boy they call'd him then. 
He sat upon the knees of inen 
In days that never come again. 



268 THE TWO VOICES. 



" Before the little ducts began 

To feed thy bones with lime, and ran 

Their course, till thou wert also man: 

" Who took a wife, who rear'd his race, 
Whose wrinkles ^^ather'd on his face, 
Whose troubles number with his days: 

" A life of nothings, nothing-worth, 
From that first nothing ere his birth 
To that last nothing under earth ! " 

" These words," I said, " are like the rest, 
No certain clearness, but at best 
A vague suspicion of the breast: 

" But if I grant, thou might'st defend 
The thesis which th}- words intend — 
That to begin implies to end; 

" Yet how should I for certain hold. 
Because my memory is so cold. 
That I first was in human mould? 

" I cannot make this matter plain. 
But I would shoot, howe'er in vain, 
A random arrow from the brain. 

" It may be that no life is found. 
Which only to one engine bound 
Falls off, but cycles always round. 

" As old mythologies relate. 

Some draught of Lethe might await 

The slipping thro' from state to state. 

" As here we find in trances, men 
Forget the dream that happens then. 
Until they fall in trance again. 

" So might we, if our state were such 

As one before, remember much. 

For those two likes mig-ht meet and touch. 



THE TWO VOICES. 269 



" But, if I lapsed from nobler place, 
Some legend of a fallen race 
Alone might hint of my disgrace; 

" Some vague emotion of delight 

In gazing up an Alpine height, 

Some yearning towards the lamps of night* 

," Or if thro' lower lives I came — 
Tho' all experience past became 
Consolidate in mind and frame — 

" I might forget my weaker lot ; 
For is not our first year forgot? 
The haunts of memory echo not. 

• 

" And men, whose reason long was blind, 
From cells of madness unconfined, 
Oft lose whole years of darker mind. 

" Much more, if first I floated free, 
As naked essence, must I be, 
Incompetent of memory: 

" For memory dealing but with time, 
And he with matter, could she climb 
Beyond her own material prime? 

" Moreover, something is or seems. 
That touches me with mystic gleams. 
Like glimpses of forgotten dreams — 

" Of something felt, like something here: 
Of something done, I know not where; 
Such as no language may declare." 

The still voice laugh'd. " I talk," said he, 
'^ Not with thy dreams. Suffice it thee 
Thy pain is a reality." 

" But thou," said I, "hast miss'd thy mark, 
Who sought'st to wreck my mortal ark. 
By making all the horizon dark. 



270 THE TWO VOICES. 



" Wh}^ not set forth, if I should do 
This rashness, that wliich might ensue 
With this old soul in org-ans new? 



to" 



" Whatever crazy sorrow saith. 

No life that hreathes with human breath 

Has ever truly long'd for death. 

" 'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, 

life, not death, for which we pant; 
More life, and fuller, that I want." 

1 ceased, and sat as one forlorn. 
Then said the voice, in quiet scorn : 
" Behold, it is the Sabbath morn." 

And I arose, and I released 

The casement, and the light increased 

W^ith freshness in the dawning east. 

Like soften'd airs that blowing steal, 
When meres begin to uncongeal, 
The sweet church bells began to peal. 

On to God's house the people prest: 
Passing the place where each must rest, 
Each enter'd like a welcome »guest. 

One walk'd between his wife and child, 
With measur'd footfall firm and mild, 
And now and then he gravely smiled. 

The prudent partner of his blood 
Lean'd on him, faithful, gentle, good, 
Wearing the rose of \vomanhood. 

And in their double love secure. 
The little maiden walk'd demure. 
Pacing with downward eyelids pure, 

These three made unity so sweet. 
My frozen heart began to beat, 
Remembering its ancient heat. 



THE TWO VOICES. '^'71 

I blest them, and they waiider'd on ; 
I spoke, but answer came there none: 
The dull and bitter voice was gone. 

A second voice was at my ear, 

A little whisper silver-clear, 

A murmur, " Be of better cheer." 

As from some blissful neighborhood, 

A. notice faintly understood, 

" I see the end, and know the good." 

A little hint to solace woe, 

A hint, a whisper breathing low, 

^' I may not speak of what I know." 

Like an .^olian harp that wakes 

No certain air, but overtakes 

Far thought with music that it makes: 

Such seem'd the whisper at my side: 

^' What is it thou knowest, sweet voice? " I cried, 

*' A hidden hope," the voice replied : 

So heavenly-toned, that in that hour 
From out my sullen heart a power 
Broke, like the rainbow from the shower. 

To feel, altho' no tongue can prove. 
That every cloud, that spreads above 
And veileth love, itself is love. 

And forth into the fields I went, 
And Nature's living motion lent 
The pulse of hope to discontent. 

I wonder'd at the bounteous hours. 

The slow result of winter-showers: 

You scarce could see the grass for flowers. 

I wonder'd, while I paced along : 

The woods were fill'd so full with song. 

There seem'd no room for sense of wrong. 



272 



THE DAl^-DREAM. 



So variously seemed all things wrought, 
I marvell'd how the mind was brought 
To anchor by one gloomy thought; 

And wherefore rather I made choice 
To commune with that barren voice, 
Than him that said, "Rejoice! rejoice!" 



THE DAT-DREAM. 



PROLOGUE. 




LADY FLORA, let me speak: 
A pleasant hour has past away 
While, dreaming on your damask cheek, 
The dewy sister-eyelids lay. 
As by the lattice you reclin'd, 

I went thro' many wayward moods 
To see you dreaming — and, behind, 
A summer crisp with shining woods. 
And I too dream'd, until at last 

Across my fancy, brooding warm. 
The reflex of a legend past, 

And loosely settl'd into form. 
And would you have the thought I had. 

And see the vision that I saw, 
Then take the broidery-frame, and add 

A crimson to the quaint Macaw, 
And I will tell it. Turn your face. 

Nor look with that too-earnest eye^ — 
The rhymes are dazzled from their place. 
And order'd words asunder fly. 



THE DAT-LREAM. 



273 



THE SLEEPING PALACE. 




HE varying year with blade and sheaf 

Clothes and reclothes the happy plains: 
Here rests the sap Avithin the leaf, 

Here stays the blood along the veins. 
Faint shadows, vapors lightly curl'd. 

Faint murmurs from the meadows come, 
Like hints and echoes of the world 

To spirits folded in the womb. 



Soft lustre bathes the range of urns 

On every slanting terrace-lawn. 
The fountain to his place returns. 

Deep in the garden lake withdrawn. 
Here droops the banner on the tower. 

On the hall-hearths the festal fires, 
The peacock in his laurel bower. 

The parrot in his gilded wires. 

Roof-haunting martins warm their eggs: 

In these, in those the life is stay'd. 
The mantles from the golden pegs 

Droop sleepily: no sound is made. 
Not even of a gnat that sings. 

More like a picture seemeth all 
Than those old portraits of old kings, 

That watch the sleepers from the wall. 

Here sits the butler with a flask 

Bet^veen his knees haif-drain'd; and there 
Tlie wrinkled steward at his task, 

The maid-of-honor blooming fair: 
The page has caught her hand in his: 

Her lips are sever'd as to speak: 
His o\vn are pouted to a kiss : 

The blush is fix'd upon her cheek. 



18 



Till all the hundred summers pass, 

The beams, that through the oriel shine. 



274 



THE DAT-DREAM. 



Make prisms in every carven glass, 
And beaker brimm'd with noble wine. 

Each baron at the banquet sleeps, 
Grave faces gather'd in a ring. 

His state the king reposing keeps. 
He must have been a jovial king. 

All round a hedge upshoots, and shows 

At distance like a little wood; 
Thorns, ivi-es, woodbine, mistletoes. 

And grapes with bunches red as blood ; 
All creeping plants, a wall of green 

Close-matted, bur and brake and brier, 
And glimpsing over these, just seen. 

High up the topmost palace-spire. 

When will the hundred summers die. 

And thought and time be born again, 
And newer knowledge, drawing nigh. 

Bring truth that sways the soul of men? 
Here all things in their place remain. 

As all were order'd, ages since. 
Come, Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain, 

And bring the fated fairy Prince. 



THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 




^EAR after year unto her feet, 

vShe lying on her couch alone. 
Across the purpl'd coverlet. 

The maiden's jet-black hair has grown, 
On either side her tranced form 

Forth streaming from a braid of pearl; 
The slumbrous light is rich and warm. 
And moves not on the rounded curl. 



The silk star-broider'd coverlid 

Unto her limbs itself doth mould 
Languidly ever; and, amid 



THE DAY-DREAM. 275 



Her full black ringlets downward rolPd, 
Glows forth each softly-shadowed arm 

With bracelets of the diamond bright: 
Pier constant beauty doth inform 

Stillness with love, and day with light. 

She sleeps: her breathings are not heard 

In palace chambers far apart. 
The fragrant tresses are not stirr'd 

That lie upon her charmed heart. 
She sleeps: on either hand upswells 

The gold-fring'd pillow lightly prest: 
She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells 

A perfect form in perfect rest. 



THE ARRIVAL. 




LL precious things, discover'd late. 

To those that seek them issue forth; 
For love in sequel works with fate. 

And draws the veil from hidden worth. 
He travels far from other skies — 
His mantle glitters on the rocks — 
A fairy Prince, with joyful eyes, 
And lighter-footed than the fox. 

The bodies and the bones of those 

That strove in other days to pass, 
Are withered in the thorny close. 

Or scattered blanching on the grass. 
He gazes on the silent dead, 

" They perish'd in their daring deeds." 
This proverb flashes thro' his head, 

" The many fail: the one succeeds." 

He comes, scarce knowing what he seeks: 
He breaks the hedge : he enters there : 

The color flies into his cheeks: 

He trusts to light on something fair; 



276 



THE DAT-DREAM. 



For all his life the charm did talk 
About his path, and hover near 

With words of promise in his walk, 
And whisper'd voices at his ear. 

More close and close his footsteps wind; 

The Magic Music in his heart 
Beats quick and quicker, till he find 

The quiet chamber far a2Dart. 
His spirit flutters like a lark. 

He stoops — to kiss her — on his knee. 
" Love, if thy tresses be so dark. 

How dark those hidden eyes must be ! 



THE REVIVAL. 



^'^^^^^ 




TOUCH, a kiss! the charm was snapt; 

,. There rose a noise of striking clocks, 
a 

And feet that ran, and doors that clapt, 
And barking dogs, and crowing cocks; 

A fuller light illumin'd all, 

A breeze thro' all the garden swept, 

A sudden hirbbub shook the hall. 
And sixty feet the fountain leapt. 



The hedge broke in, the banner blew. 

The butler drank, the steward scrawl'd. 
The fire shot up, the martin flew. 

The parrot scream'd, the peacock squall'd. 
The maid and page renew'd their strife, 

The palace bang'd, and buzz'd, and clackt 
And all the long-pent stream of life 

Dash'd downvs^ard in a cataract. 



And last with these the king awoke. 
And in his chair himself uprear'd. 
And yawn'd, and rubb'd his face, and spoke, 



THE DAT-DREAM. 



277 




" By holy rood, a royal beard ! 
How say you? we have slept, my lords. 

My beard has grown into my lap." 
The barons swore, with many words, 

'Twas but an after-dinner's nap. 



" Pardy," return'd the king, " but still 

My joints are something stiff or so. 
My lord, and shall we pass the bill 

I inention'd half an hour ago?" 
The chancellor, sedate and vain. 

In courteous words return'd reply ; 
But dallied with his golden chain. 

And, siniling, put the question by. 



278 THE DAT-DREAM. 



THE DEPARTURE. 



^^^^vXD on her lover's arm she leant, 
SjJ^lt And round her waist she felt it fold, 
£ 1^^ ='^And far across the hills thev went 
^«j' ,j^ Ii^ that new world which is the old : 

' Across the hills, and far away 

Beyond their utmost purple rim, 
And deep into the dying day 

The happy princess foilow'd him. 



" I'd sleep another hundred years, 

O love, for such another kiss;" 
" O wake forever, love," she hears, 

" O love, 't was such as this and this." 
And o'er them many a sliding star. 

And many a merry wind was borne. 
And, stream'd thro' many a golden bar. 

The twilight melted into morn. 

'' O eves long laid in happv sleep!" 

" O happy sleep, that lightly fled! " 
" O happv kiss, that woke tliy sleep! " 

" O love, thy kiss would wake the dead! " 
And o'er them many a flowing range 

Of vapor buoy'd the crescent-bark. 
And, rapt thro' many a rosy change. 

The twilight died into the dark. 

" A hundred summers! can it be? 

And whither goest thou, tell me where?" 
" O seek my father's court with me. 

For there are g-reater wonders there." 
And o'er the hills, and far away 

Bevond their utmost purple rim, 
Bevond the night, across the dav. 

Thro' all the world she foilow'd him. 



THE DAT-DREAM. 279 




MORAL. 



O, Lady Flora, take m}^ lay, 

And if you find no moral there, 
Go, look in any glass and say, 
What moral is in being fair. 
O to what uses shall we put 

The wildweed-flower that simply blows? 
And is there any moral shut 
Within the bosom of the rose? 

But any man that walks the mead, 

In bud or blade, or bloom, may find, 
According as his humors lead, 

A meaning suited to his mind. 
And liberal applications lie 

In Art like Nature, dearest friend; 
So 't were to cramp its use, if I 

Should hook it to some useful end. 




L'ENVOI. 



^OU shake your head. A random string 

Your finer female sense offends. 
Well — were it not a pleasant thing 

To fall asleep with all one's friends; 
To pass with all our social ties 

To silence from the paths of men; 
And every hundred years to rise 

And learn the world, and sleep again : 
To sleep thro' terms of mighty wars, 

And wake on science grown to more, 
On secrets of the brain, the stars. 

As ^vild as aught of fairy lore; 



280 THE DAT-DREAM, 



And all that else the years will show, 

The Poet forms of stronger hours, 
The vast Republics that may grow, 

The Federations and the Powers; 
Titanic forces taking birth 

In divers seasons, divers climes; 
For w^e are ancients of the earth. 

And in the morning of the times. 

So sleeping, so arous'd from sleep 

Thro' sunny decades new and strange. 

Or gay quinquenniads would we reap 
The flower and quintessence of change. 

Ah, yet would I — and would I might? 

So much your eyesniy fancy take — 
Be still the first to leap to light 

That I might kiss those eyes awake! 
For, am I right or am I wrong. 

To choose your own you did not care ; 
You'd have 7ny moral from the song, 

And I will take my pleasure there: 
And, am I right or am I wrong, 

My fancy, ranging thro' and thro', 
To search a meaning for the song, 

Perforce will still revert to you ; 
Nor finds a closer truth than this 

All-graceful head, so richly curl'd, 
And evermore a costly kiss 

The prelude to some brighter world. 

For since the time when Adam first 

Embraced his Eve in hap2)y hour, 
And every bird of Eden burst 

In carol, every bud to flower, 
What eyes, like thine, have waken'd hopes.? 

What lips, like thine, so sweetly join'd.? 
Where on the double rosebud droops 

The fulness of the pensive mind; 
Which all too dearly self-involv'd, 

Yet sleeps a dreamless sleep to me; 
A sleep by kisses undissolv'd. 

That lets thee neither hear nor see: 
But break it. In the name of wife. 




"Young ashes pirouetted down, 

Coquetting with young beeches." 

See fag e j82. 



AMPHION. 



281 



And in the rights that name may give, 
Are clasp'd the moral of thy life, 
And that for which I care to live. 



EPILOGUE. 



So, Lady Flora, take my lay, 

And, if you find a meaning there, 
O whisper to your glass, and say, 

" What wonder, if he thinks me fair?" 
What wonder I was all unwise. 

To shape the song for your delight. 
Like long-tail'd birds of Paradise, 

That float thro' Heaven, and cannot light? 
Or old-world trains, upheld at court 

By Cupid boys of blooming hue — 
But take it — earnest wed with sport. 

And either sacred unto you. 



••^$:^^^I^5S^=:^ 




AMPHION. 



Y father left' a park to me, 
But it is wild and barren, 
A garden too with scarce a tree 
And w^aster than a warren : 
Yet say the neighbors when they call, 
It is not bad but good land, 
^^ ^ And in it is the germ of all 
That grows within the woodland. 

O had I lived when song was great 

In days of old Amphion, 
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate, 

Nor cared for seed or scion! 
And had I lived when song was great, 

And legs of trees were limber, 
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate. 

And fiddled in the timber! 



282 AMPHIOX. 



'T is said he had a tuneful tongue, 

Such happy intonation. 
Wherever he sat down and sung 

He left a small plantation; 
Wherever in a lonely grove 

He set up his forlorn pipes, 
The gouty oak began to move, 

And flounder into hornpipes. 

The mountain stirr'd its bushy crown, 

And, as tradition teaches, 
Young ashes pirouetted down 

Coquetting ^vith voung beeches ; 
And briony-vine and ivy- wreath 

Ran forward to his rhyming, 
And from the valleys underneath 

Came little copses climbing. 

The birch-tree swang her fragrant hair. 

The bramble cast her berrv. 
The gin within the juniper 

Began to make him merry. 
The poplars, in long order due. 

With cypress promenaded. 
The shock-head willows two and two 

Bv rivers gallopaded. 

Came wet-shot alder from the wave, 

Came yews, a dismal coterie; 
Each pluck'd his one foot from the grave, 

Poussetting ^vith a sloe-tree : 
Old elms came breaking from the vine, 

The vine stream'd out to follow, 
And, sweating rosin, plump'd the pine 

From many a cloudy hollow. 

And ^vasn't it a sight to see, 

When, ere his song was ended. 
Like some great landslip, tree by tree. 

The country-side descended ; 
And shepherds from the mountain-eaves 

Look'd down, half-pleasM, half-frighten'd. 
As dash'd about the drunken leaves 

The random sunshine lighten'd I 



AMPHION. 283 



O, nature first was fresh to men, 

And wanton without measure : 
So youthful and so flexile then, 

You moved her at your pleasure. 
Twang out, my fiddle! shake the twigs! 

And make her dance attendance; 
Blow, flute, and stir the stifF-set sprigs. 

And scirrhous roots and tendons. 

'Tisvain! in such a brassy age 

I could not move a thistle : 
The very sparrows in the hedge 

Scarce answer to my whistle : 
Or at the most, when three-parts-sick 

With strumming and with scraping, 
A jackass heehaws from the rick, 

The passive oxen gaping. 

But what is that I hear? a sound 

Like sleepy counsel pleading: 
O Lord! — 'tis in my neighbor's ground. 

The modern Muses reading. 
They read Botanic Treatises, 

And Works on Gardening thro' there, 
And Methods of transplanting trees. 

To look as if they grew there. 

The wither'd Misses! how they prose 

O'er books of travell'd seamen, 
And show you slips of all that grows 

From England to Van Diemen. 
They read in arbors dipt and cut. 

And alleys, faded places. 
By squares of tropic summer shut 

And warm'd in crystal cases. 

But these, tho' fed with careful dirt. 

Are neither green nor sappy ; 
Half-conscious of the garden-squirt. 

The spindlings look unhappy. 
Better to me the meanest weed 

That blows upon its mountain. 
The vilest herb that runs to seed 

Beside its native fountain. 



284 



WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE. 



And I must work thro' months of toil, 

And years of cultivation, 
Upon my proper patch of soil 

To grow mv own plantation. 
I'll take the showers as they fall, 

I will not vex my bosom: 
Enough if at the end of all 

A little o-arden blossom. 



•-^5^^:?g-5^=:$« 



WILL WATERPROOF'S LTRICAL MONOLOGUE, 




MADE AT THE COCK. 



r%-> PLUMP head-waiter at The Cock, 

Wi) To which I must resort, 

How goes the time? 'Tis five o'clock. 
Go fetch a pint of port: 
JftD But let it not be such as that 
^^«^S You set before chance comers, 
^^<^But such whose father-grape grew fat 
On Lusitanian suinmers. 



ain libation to the Muse, 

But may she still be kind,. 
And whisper lovely word"^, and use 

Her influence on the mind. 
To make me write m}' random rhymes. 

Ere they be half-forgotten; 
Xor add and alter, many times. 

Till all be ripe and rotten. 



I pledge her, and she comes and dips 

Her laurel in the wine, 
And lavs it dirice upon my lips. 

These favor'd lips of mine; 
Until the charm have power to make 

New life-blood warm the bosom, 
And barren commonplaces break 

In full and kindh' blossom. 



WILL WATERPROOF'S LTRICAL MONOLOGUE. 285 

* 
I pledge her silent at the board; 

Her gradual fingers steal 
And touch upon the master-chord 

Of all I felt and feel. 
Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans, 

And phantom hopes assemble; 
And that child's heart within the man's 

Begins to move and tremble. 

Thro' many an hour of summer suns 

By many pleasant ways, 
Against its fountain upward runs 

The current of my days. 
I kiss the lips I once have kiss'd; 

The gas-light wavers dimmer; 
And softly thro' a vinous mist. 

My college friendships glimmer. 

I grow in worth, and wit, and sense, 

Unboding critic-pen, 
Or that eternal want of pence. 

Which vexes public men, 
Who hold their hands to all, and cry 

For that which all deny them, — 
Who sweep the crossings, wet or dry^ 

And all the world go by them. 

Ah yet, tho' all the world forsake, 

Tho' fortune clip my wings, 
I will not cramp my heart, nor take 

Half-views of men and things. 
Let Whig and Tory stir their blood; 

There must be stormy weather: 
But for some true result of good 

All parties work together. 

Let there be thistles, there are grapes; 

If old things, there are new; 
Ten thousand broken lights and shapes, 

Yet glimpses of the true. 
Let raffs be rife in prose and rhyme. 

We lack not rh3aiies and reasons. 
As on this whirligfior of Time 

We circle with the seasons. 



286 WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE. 

This earth is rich in man and maid; 

With fair horizons bound! 
This whole wide earth of Hght and shade 

Comes out, a perfect round. 
High over roaring Temple-bar, 

And, set in Heaven's third story, 
' I look at all things as they are, 

But thro' a kind of glory. 



Head-waiter, honor'd by the guest 

Half-musYl, or reeling-ripe. 
The pint you brought me, was the best 

That ever came from pipe. 
But tho' the port surpasses praise. 

My nerves have dealt with stiffer. 
Is there some magic in the place? 

Or do my peptics differ? 

For since I came to live and learn. 

No pint of white or red 
Had ever half the power to turn 

This wheel within my head. 
Which bears a season'd brain about, 

Unsubject to confusion, 
Tho' soak'd and saturate, out and out. 

Thro' every convolution. 

For I am of a numerous house, 

With many kinsmen gay. 
Where long and largely we carouse. 

As who shall say me nay. 
Each month, a birthday coming on, 

We drink defying trouble, 
Or sometimes two would meet in one. 

And then we drank it double ; 

Whether the vintage, yet unkept, 

Had relish fiery -new. 
Or, elbow-deep in sawdust, slept. 

As old as Waterloo; 
Or stow'd (when classic Canning died) 



WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE. 287 



In musty bins and chambers, 
Had cast upon its crusty side 
The gloom of ten Decembers. 

The Muse, the jolly Muse, it is! 

She answer'd to my call. 
She changes with that mood or this, 

Is all-in-all to all: 
She lit the spark within my throat. 

To make my blood run quicker, 
Used all her fiery will, and smote 

Her life into the liquor. 

And hence this halo lives about 

The waiter's hands, that reach 
To each his perfect pint of stout, 

His proper chop to each. 
He looks not like the common breed 

That with the napkin dally; 
I think he came like Ganymede, 

From some delightful valley. 

The Cock was of a larger o^^^ 

Than modern poultry drop, 
Stept forward on a firmer leg. 

And cramm'd a plumper crop; 
Upon an ampler dunghill trod, 

Crow'd lustier late and early, 
Sipt wine from silver, praising God, • 

And raked in golden barley. 

A private life was all his joy. 

Till in a court he saw 
A something-pottle-bodied boy. 

That knuckled at the taw: 
He stoop'd and clutch'd him, fair and good 

Flew over roof and casement: 
His brothers of the weather stood 

Stock-still for sheer amazement. 

But he, by farmstead, thorpe, and spire, 

And follow'd with acclaims, 
A sign to many a staring shire. 

Came crowing over Thames. 



288 WILL WATERPROOF'S Ll'RICAL MONOLOGUE 

Right down by smoky Paul's they bore, 

Till, where the street grows straiter, 
One fix'd forever at the door, 

And one became head-waiter. 



But whither would my fancy go? 

How out of place she makes 
The violet of a legend blow 

Among the chops and steaks! 
'Tis but a steward of the can, 

One shade more jolump than common; 
As just and mere a serving-man 

As any, born of woman. 

I ranged too higfh: what draws me down 

Into the common day? 
Is it the weight of that half-crown. 

Which I shall have to pay? 
For, something duller than at first, 

Nor wholly comfortable, 
I sit (my empty glass revers'd). 

And thrumming on the table; 

Half-fearful that, with self at strife, 

I take myself to task; 
Lest of the fulness of my life 

I leave an empty flask: 
For I had hope, by something rare. 

To prove myself a poet; 
But, while I plan and plan, my hair 

Is gray before I know it. 

So fares it since the years began. 

Till they be gather'd up; 
The truth, that flies the flowing can. 

Will haunt the vacant cup: 
And others' follies teach us not, 

Xor much their wisdom teaciies; 
And most, of sterling worth, is what 

Our own experience preaches. 



I 



WILL WATERPROOF'S LTRICAL MONOLOGUE. 289 

Ah, let the rusty theme alone! 

We know not what we know. 
But for my pleasant hour, 'tis gone, 

'Tis gone, and let it go. 
'Tis gone: a thousand such have slipt 

Away from my embraces. 
And fall'n into the dusty crypt 

Of darken'd forms and faces. 

Go, therefore, thou ! thy betters went 

Long since, and came no more: 
With peals of genial clamor sent 

From many a tavern-door. 
With twisted quirks and happy hits, 

From misty men of letters; 
The tavern-hours of mighty w^its, — 

Thine elders and thy betters. 

Hours, when the Poet's words and looks 

Had yet their native glow: 
Nor yet the fear of little books 

Had made him talk for show ; 
But, all his vast heart sherris-warm'd, " - 

He flash'd his I'andom speeches; 
Ere days, that deal in ana, swarm'd. 

His literary leeches. 

So mix forever with the past, 

Like all good things on earth! 
For should I prize thee, couldst thou last. 

At half thy real worth? 
I bold it good, good things should pass: 

With time I will not quarrel : 
It is but yonder empty glass 

That makes me maudlin-moral. 



Head waiter of the chop-house here. 

To Mrhich I must resort, 
I too must part; I hold thee dear 

For this good pint of port. 



19 



290 WILL WATERPROOF'S LTRICAL MONOLOGUE. 

For this, thou shalt from all things suck 
Marrow of mirth and laughter; 

And, wheresoe'er thou move, good luck 
Shall fling her old shoe after. 

But thou wilt never move from hence, 

The sphere thy fate allots: 
Thy latter days increas'd with pence 

Go down among the pots: 
Thou battenest by the greasy gleam 

In haunts of hungry sinners, 
Old boxes, larded with the steam 

Of thirty thousand dinners. 

We fret, we fume, would shift our skins, 

Would quarrel with our lot: 
Thy care is, under polish'd tins. 

To serve the hot-and-hot; 
To come and go, and come again. 

Returning like the pewit. 
And watch'd by silent gentlemen, 

That trifle with the cruet. 

Live long, ere from thy topmost head 

The thick-set hazel dies; 
Long, ere the hateful crow shall tread 

The corners of thine eyes: 
Live long, nor feel in head or chest 

Our changeful equinoxes. 
Till mellow Death, like some late guest. 

Shall call thee from the boxes. 

But when he calls, and thou shalt cease 

To pace the gritted floor. 
And, laying down an unctuous lease 

Of life, shalt earn no more: 
No carv'd cross-bones, the types of Death, 

Shall show thee past to Heaven ; 
But carv'd cross-pipes, and, underneath, 

A pint-pot, neatly graven. 






W01i^^ 




" For me the torrent ever pour'd." 



Ir:^ E. L., ON HIS TRAVELS IN GREECE. 291 



TO B, Z., ON HIS TRA VELS IN GREECE, 




LLYRIAN woodlands, echoing falls 
Of water, sheets of summer glass, 
The long divine Peneian pass, 
The vast Akrokeraunian walls, 

Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair. 
With such a pencil, such a pen. 
You shadow forth to distant men, 

I read and felt that I was there : 



And trust me while I turn'd the page, 
And track'd you still on classic ground, 
I grew in gladness till I found 

My spirits in the golden age. 

For me the torrent ever pour'd 

And glisten'd — here and there alone 

The broad-limb'd Gods at random thrown 

By fountain-urns; — and Naiads oar'd 



A glimmering shoulder under gloom 
Of cavern pillars; on the swell 
The silver lily heav'd and fell ; 

And many a slope was rich in bloom 

From him that on the mountain lea 
By dancing rivulets fed his flocks. 
To him who sat upon the rocks, 

And fluted to the morning sea. 




292 



LADY CLARE. 




4J^id:ii4. 




^T was the time when lilies blow, 
And clouds are highest up in air, 
Lord Ronald brought a lilj^-white doe 
To give his cousin, Lady Clare. 



I trow they did not part in scorn: 
Lovers long-betroth'd were they : 

They too will wed the morrow morn: 
God's blessing on the day ! 

" He does not love me for my birth, 
Nor for my lands so broad and fair: 

He loves me for my own true worth, 
And that is well," said Lady Clare. 

In there came old Alice the nurse, 

Said, " Who was this that went from thee? " 
" It was m}^ cousin," said Lady Clare, 

" To-morrow he v^^eds ^vith ine." 



" O God be thank'cl ! " said Alice the nurse, 
" That all comes round so just and fair: 



r J- 









Lb v\ ^ u, ! J 







'^^mB'^^m^tMfw . 




" It was the time when lilies blow.' 



I^ADT CLARE. 293 



Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands, 
And you are not the Lady Clare." 

" Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my nurse? 

Said Lady Clare, " that ye speak so wild? " 
" As God's above," said Alice the nurse, 

" I speak the truth : you are my child. 

" The old Earl's daughter died at my breast; 

I speak the truth, as I live by bread! 
I buried her like my own sweet child, 

And put my child in her stead." 

" Falsely, falsely have ye done, 

O mother," she said, " if this be true, 

To keep the best man under the sun 
So man}^ years from his due." 

*' Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse, 

" But keep the secret for your life. 
And all you have will be Lord Ronald's, 

When you are man and wife." 

" If I'm a beggar born," she said, 
" I w^ill speak out, for I dare not lie. 

Pull off, pull off, the broach of gold, 
And fling the diamond necklace by." 

^' Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse, 

" But keep the secret all ye can." 
She said "Not so: but I will know 

If there be any faith in man." 

*' Nay novs^, ^vhat faith? " said Alice the nurse, 
^' The man will cleave unto his right." 

^' And he shall have it," the lady replied, 
" Tho' I should die to-night." 

** Yet give one kiss to your mother dear! 

Alas, my child, I sinn'd for thee." 
*' O mother, mother, mother," she said, 

" So strange it seems to me. 



294 



LADT CLARE. 



" Yet here's a kiss for my mother dear, 
My mother dear, if this be so, 

And lay your hand upon my head, 
And bless me, mother, ere I go." 

She clad herself in a russet gown. 
She was no longer Lad}^ Clare: 

She went by dale, and she went by down. 
With a single rose In her hair. 




The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought 

Leapt up from where she laj^, 
Dropt her head in the maiden's hand. 

And follow'd her all the way. 



Down stept Lord Ronald from his tow^er: 
" O Lady Clare, you shame your worth! 



LADT CLARE. 295 



Why come you drest like a village maid, 
That are the flower of the earth? " 



" If I come drest like a village maid, 

I am but as my fortunes are : 
I am a beggar born," she said, . 

» And not the Lady Clare." 

" Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald, 
" For I am yours in w^ord and in deed. 

Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald, 
" Your riddle is hard to read." 

O and proudly stood she up! 

Her heart within her did not fail: 
She look'd into Lord Ronald's eyes. 

And told him all her nurse's tale. 

He laugh'd a laugh of merry scorn : 

He turn'd, and kiss'd her where she stood; 

" If you are not the heiress born, 

" And I," said he, " the next in blood — 

" If you are not the heiress born. 
And I," said he, " the lawful heir. 

We two will wed to-morrow morn, 
And you shall still be Lady Clare." 




296 



Sm GALAHAD. 



SIR GALAHAD. 



I 




Y good blade carves the casques of men 
My tough lance thrusteth sure, 
, My strength is as the strength of ten, 
Because my heart is pure. 
The shattering trumpet shrilleth high. 
The hard brands shiver on the steel, 
i"* The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly, 
The horse and rider reel: 
They reel, they roll in clanging lists, 

And when the tide of combat stands. 
Perfume and flo\vers fall in showers, 
That lightl3^ rain from ladies' hands. 

How sweet are looks that ladies bend 

On w^hom their favors fall ! 
For them I battle to the end. 

To save from shame and thrall : 
But all my heart is drawn above, 

My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine: 
I never felt the kiss of love, 

Nor maiden's hand in mine. 
More bounteous aspects on me beam, 

Me mightier transports move and thrill; 
So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer 
A virgin heart in work and will. 



When down the stormy crescent goes, 

A light before me swims, 
Betvv^een dark stems the forest glows, 

I hear a noise of h3^mns : 
Then by some secret shrine I ride: 

I hear a voice, but none are there: 
The stalls are void, the doors are wide. 

The tapers burning fair. 



S/I? GALAHAD. 



297 




Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth, 
The silver vessels sparkle clean, 

The shrill bell rings, the censer sv/ings, 
And soleinn chants resound betw^een. 



Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres 

I find a magic bark ; 
I leap on board: no helmsman steers, 

I float till all is dark. 
A gentle sound, an aw^ful light! 

Three angels bear the holy Grail: 
With folded feet, in stoles of white, 

On sleeping wings the}' sail. 
Ah, blessed vision! blood of God! 

My spirit beats her mortal bars. 
As down dark tides the glory slides. 

And star-like mingles with the stars. 



298 SIJi GALAHAD. 



When on my goodly charger borne 

Thro' dreaming towns I go, 
The cock crows ere the Christmas morn 

The streets are dumb with snow. 
The tempest crackles on the leads, 

And, ringing, spins from brand and mail; 
But o'er the dark a glory spreads, 

And ofilds the driving- hail. 
I leave the plain, I climb the height; 

No branchy thicket shelter 3'ields: 
But blessed forms in whistling storms 

Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields. 

A maiden knight — to me is given 

Such hope, I know not fear; 
I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven 

That often meet me here. 
I muse on joy that ^vill not cease. 

Pure spaces clothed in living beams, 
Pure lilies of eternal peace, 

Whose odors haunt my dreams, 
And, stricken by an angel's hand, 
' This mortal armor that I wear. 
This weight and size, this heart and eyes. 

Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air. 

The clouds are broken in the sky, 

And thro' the mountain-walls 
A rolling organ-harmony 

Swells up, and shakes and falls. 
Then move the trees, the copses nod, 

Wings flutter, voices hover clear: 
" O just and faithful knight of God! 

Ride on! the prize is near." 
So pass I hostel, hall, and grange; 

By bridge and ford, by park and pale, 
All-arm'd I ride, whatever betide, 

Until T find the holy Grail. 




ST. AGNES' EVE. 



299 




ST, AGNES' EVE, 




EEP on the convent-roof the snows 

Are sparkhng to the moon: 
My breath to heaven like vapor goes: 

May my soul foUov^^ soon! 
The shadows of the convent-towers 

Slant down rhe snowy sward, 
Still creeping with the creeping hours 

That lead me to my Lord : 
Make Thou my spirit pure and clear 

As are the frosty skies, 
Or this first snowdrop of the year 
That in my bosom lies. 



300 



TO 



As these white robes are soiled and dark, 

To yonder shining ground; 
As this pale taper's earthly spark, 

To yonder argent round ; 
So shows my soul before the Lamb, 

Aly spirit before Thee; 
So in mine earthly house I am, 

To that I hope to be. 
Break up the heavens, O Lord ! and far, 

Thro' all yon starlight keen, 
Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star, 

In raiment white and clean. 

He lifts me to the golden doors 

The flashes come and go; 
All heaven bursts her starry floors. 

And strews her lights below. 
And deepens on and up! the gates 

Roll back, and far within 
For me the Heavenh^ Bridegroom waits, 

To make me pure of sin. 
The Sabbaths of Eternity, 

One Sabbath deep and wide — 
A light upon the shining sea — 

The brideg-room with his bride! 



••■^^<^^:ig-^=:$^ 



TO 



AFTER READING A LIFE AND LETTERS. 



Cursed be he that moves my bones." — Shakespeare^ s Epitaph. 




OU might have won the Poet's name, 
If such be worth the winning now. 
And gain'd a laurel for your brow 

Of sounder leaf than I can claim. 



But you have made the wiser choice, 
A life that moves to gracious ends 
Thro' troops of unrecording friends, 

A deedful life, a silent voice: 



TO . 301 

And you have miss'd the irreverent doom 

Of those that wear the Poet's crown: 

Hereafter, neither knave nor clown 
Shall hold their orgies at your tomb. 

For now the Poet cannot die 

Nor leave his music as of old, 

But round him ere he scarce be cold 
Begins the scandal and the cry: 

"Proclaim the faults he would not show: 

Break lock and seal: Betray the trust: 

Keep nothing sacred: 'tis but just 
The many-headed beast should know." 

Ah shameless! for he did but sing 

A song that pleas'd us from its worth; 

No public life w^as his on earth. 
No blazon'd statesman he, nor king. 

He gave the people of his best: 

His worst he kept, his best he gave. 

My Shakespeare's curse on clown and knave 
Who will not let his ashes rest! 

Who make it seem more sweet to be 

The little life of bank and brier. 

The bird that pipes his lone desire 
And dies unheard within his tree. 

Than he that warbles long and loud 

And drops at Glory's temple-gates. 

For whom the carrion vulture waits 
To tear his heart before the crowd! 




302 



THE LORD OF BURLEIGH. 



THE LORD OF BURLEIGH, 





N her ear he whispers ga^dy, 
" If my heart by signs can tell, 
jSIaiden, I have watch'd thee daily, 

And I think thou lov'st me ^vell." 
She replies, in accents fainter, 

" There is none I love like thee." 
He is but a landscape-painter, 
And a village maiden she. 
He to lips, that fondly falter. 

Presses his ^vithout reproof: 
Leads her to the village altar, 

And they leave her father's roof. 
" I can make no marriage present; 

Little can I give my wife. 
Love will make our cottage pleasant, 

And I love thee more than life." 
They by parks and lodges going 

See the lordly castles stand; 
Summer woods, about them blowing, 

Made a murmur in the land. 
From deep thought himself he rouses, 

Says to her that loves him well, 
" Let us see these handsome houses 

Where the wealthy nobles dwell." 
So she goes by him attended. 

Hears hiHn lovingly converse. 
Sees w^hatever fair and splendid 

Lay betwixt his home and hers; 

Parks with oak and chestnut shady. 

Parks and order'd gardens great, 

Ancient homes of lord and lady. 

Built for pleasure and for state. 

All he shows her makes him dearer. 

Evermore she seems to gaze 
On that cottage growing nearer. 

Where the}^ twain will spend their days. 
O but she will love him truly! 
He shall have a cheerful home: 



THE LORD OF BURLEIGH. 303 

She will order all things duly, 

When beneath his roof they come. 
Thus her heart rejoices greatly, 

Till a gateway she discerns 
With armorial bearings stately, 

And beneath the gate she turns; 
Sees a mansion more majestic 

Than all those she saw before: 
Many a gallant gay domestic 

Bows before him at the door. 
And they speak in gentle murmur, 

When they answer to his call. 
While he treads with footstep firmer, 

Leading on from hall to hall. 
And, while now she wonders blindly. 

Nor the meaning can divine. 
Proudly turns he round and kindly, 

" All of this is mine and thine." 
Here he lives in state and bounty. 

Lord of Burleigh, fair and free. 
Not a lord in all the county 

Is so great a lord as he. 
All at once the color flushes 

Her sweet face from brow to chin: 
As it were with shame she blushes, 

And her spirit changed within. 
Then her countenance all over 

Pale again as death did prove; 
But he clasp'd her like a lover, 

x\nd he cheer'd her soul with love. 
So she strove against her weakness, 

Tho' at times her spirit sank: 
Shap'd her heart with woman's meekness 

To all duties of her rank : 
And a gentle consort made he. 

And her gentle mind was such 
That she grew a noble lady. 

And the people lov'd her much. 
But a trouble v/eigh'd upon her. 

And perplex'd her, night and morn. 
With the burden of an honor 

Unto which she was not born. 
Faint she grew, and ever fainter. 

As she murmur'd, " O, that he 
Were once more that landscape-painter, 



304 THE POETS SONG. 



Which did win my heart from me ! " 
So she droop'd and droop'd before him, 

Fading slowly from his side: 
Three fair children first she bore him, 

Then before her time she died. 
Weeping, weeping late and early. 

Walking np and pacing down, 
Deeply mourn'd the Lord of Burleigh, 

Burleigh-house by Stamford-town. 
And he came to look upon her. 

And he look'd at her and said, 
" Bring the dress and put it on her. 

That she wore when she w^as wed." 
Then her people, softly treading, 

Bore to earth her body, drest 
In the dress that she was wed in. 

That her spirit might have rest. 



THE POET'S SONG. 



^^^\ 




f-HE rain had fallen, the Poet arose, 
>. He pass'd by the town and out of the street. 
A light w^ind blew from the gates of the sun, 
And waves of shadow went over the wheat, 
And he sat him down in a lonely place, 
And chanted a melody loud and sw^eet. 
That made the wild swan pause in her cloud, 
And the lark drop down at his feet. 

The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee, 

The snake slipt under a spray. 
The wild hawk stood wnth the down on his beak. 

And stared, with his foot on the prey, 
And the nightingale thought, " I have sung many songs. 

But n^N^r a one so gay. 
For he sings of what the world will be 

When the vears have died awav." 




And the nightingale thought, " I have sung many songs." 



EDWARD GRAT. 



305 



EDWARD GRAT. 




jg^WEET Emma Moreland of yonder town 
^ Met me walking on yonder way, 
jg;^^ " And have you lost your heart," she said : 

" And are you married yet, Edward Gray?" 




Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me: 
Bitterly weeping I turn'd away: 

" Sweet Emma Moreland, love no more 
Can touch the heart of Edward Grav. 



306 EDWARD GRA2' 



" Ellen Adair she loved me well, 

Against her fiither's and mother's will: 

To-day I sat for an hour and wept, 
By Ellen's grave, on the windy hill. 

" Shy she was, and I thought her cold; 

Thought her proud, and fled over the sea; 
Fill'd I was with folly and spite, 

When Ellen Adair was dying for me. 

" Cruel, cruel the words I said ! 

Cruelly came they back to-day: 
' You're too slight and fickle,' I said, 

' To trouble the heart of Edward Gray.' 

'* There I put my face in the grass — 
Whisper'd, ' Listen to my despair: 

I repent me of all I did: 

Speak a little, Ellen Adair! ' 

*' Then I took a pencil, and wrote 

On the mossy stone, as I lay, 
*Here lies the body of Ellen Adair; 

And here the heart of Edward Gray!' 

" Love may come, and love may go. 
And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree; 

But I Avill love no more, no more. 
Till Ellen Adair comes back to me. 

" Bitterly wept I over the stone : 
Bitterly weeping I turn'd away: 

There lies the body of Ellen Adair! 

And there the heart of Edward Gray!" 




S//? LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINEVERE. 



307 



SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GULNEYERE. 




A FRAGMENT. 



IKE souls that balance joy and pain^ 

With tears and smiles from heaven again 
The maiden Spring upon the plain 
Came in a sunlit fiill of rain. 

In crystal vapor everywhere 
^Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between, 
w "And, far in forest-deeps unseen, 



The topmost elm-tree gather'd green 
From draughts of balmy air. 

Sometimes the linnet piped his song. 
Sometimes the throstle whistled strong: 
Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along, 
Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong; 

By grassy capes with fuller sound 
In curves the yellowing river ran, 
And drooping chestnut-buds began 
To spread into the perfect fan. 

Above the teeming- oround. 



Then, in the boyhood of the year. 
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere 
Rode thro' the coverts of the deer. 
With blissful treble ringing clear. 

She seem'd a part of joyous Spring: 
A gown of grass-green silk she wore, 
Buckl'd with golden clasps before; 
A light-green tuft of plumes she bore 

Clos'd in a golden ring. 



Now on some twisted ivy-net, 

Now by some tinkling rivulet, 

In mosses mixt with violet 

Her cream-white mule his pastern set; 

And fleeter now she skimm'd the plains 



308 THE EAGLE. 



Than she whose elfin prancer springs 
By night to eery warbHngs, 
When all the glimmering moorland rings 
With jingling bridle-reins. 

As she fled fast thro' sun and shade, 
The happy winds upon her play'd, 
Blowing the ringlet from the braid: 
She look'd so lovely as she sway'd 

The rein with dainty finger tips, 
A man had given all other bliss. 
And all his worldly worth for this. 
To waste his whole heart in one kiss 

Upon her perfect lips. 




THE EAGLE, 



FRAGMENT. 



He clasps the crag with hooked hands; 
Close to the sun in lonely lands, 
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands. 

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; 
He watches from his mountain walls. 
And like a thunderbolt he falls. 



THE BEGGAR MAID. 



309 




THE BEGGAR MAID. 



^^^^ 




ER arms across her breast she laid: 



yij'^ She was more fair than words can say 
** Barefooted came the beggar maid 
Before the king Coplietua. 
In robe and crown the king stept down, 

To meet and greet her on her way : 
'• It is no wonder," said the lords, 
" She is more beautiful than day." 



As shines the moon in clouded skies, 
She in her poor attire was seen: 

One praisVi her ankles, one her eyes. 
One her dark hair and lovesome main. 



310 



A FAREWELL. 



So sweet a face, such angel grace, 
In all that land had never been : 

Cophetua sware a royal oath: 

" This beggar maid shall be my queen! " 



A FAREWELL, 



l^f 



LOW down, cold rivulet, to the sea. 
Thy tribute wave deliver: 
P^'^^^No more by thee my steps shall be. 
Forever and forever. 



Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea, 

A rivulet then a river : 
Nowhere by thee my steps shall be, 

Forever and forever. 

But here will sigh thine alder tree. 
And here thine aspen shiver; 

And here b}' thee will hum the bee. 
Forever and forever, 

A thousand suns will stream on thee, 
A thousand moons will quiver; 

But not by thee my steps shall be. 
Forever and forever. 





Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea, 
A rivulet then a river." 



THE VISION OF SIN. 



311 



THE VISION OF SIN, 



J''^^^ 

^#" 
^ 



^^rV 




52f^^E^' HAD a vision when the night was late: 

S ^'i^^ A youth came riding toward a palace-gate. 

* ^'^^^^^He rode a horse with wings, that would have flown, 

^^i^ But that his heavy rider kept him down. 
¥t ^^^^ "^^^ from the palace came a child of sin, 
™^^P^3 And took him bv the curls, and led him in. 
Where sat a company with heated eyes, 

Expecting when a fountain should arise: 

A sleepy light upon their brows and lips — 

As when the sun, a crescent of eclipse, 

Dreams over lake and lawn, and isles and capes — 

SufFus'd them, sitting, lying, languid shapes, 

By heaps of gourds, and skins of wine, and piles of grapes. 



II. 



Then methought I heard a mellow sound. 

Gathering up from all the lower ground; 

Narrowing in to where they sat assembled 

Low voluptuous music winding trembled, 

Wov'n in circles: they that heard it sigh'd, 

Panted hand in hand with faces pale, 

Swung themselves, and in low tones replied; 

Till the fountain spouted, showering w4de 

Sleet of diamond-drift and pearly hail; 

Then the music touch'd the gates and died; 

Rose again from where it seem'd to fail, 

Storm'd in orbs of song, a growing gale; 

Till thronging in and in, to where they waited, 

As 't were a hundred-throated nightingale. 

The strong tempestuous treble throbb'd and palpitated; 

Ran into its giddiest ^vhirl of sound. 

Caught the sparkles, and in circles. 

Purple gauzes, golden hazes, liquid mazes, 

Flung the torrent rainbow round : 

Then they started from their places. 

Moved with violence, chang'd in hue, 



312 THE VISION OF SIN 



Caught each other with wild grimaces, 

Half-invisible to the view , 

W heeling with precipitate paces 

To the melody, till the}' flew, 

Hair, and eyes, and limbs, and faces. 

Twisted hard in fierce embraces. 

Like to Furies, like to Graces, 

Dash'd together in blinding dew: 

Till, kill'd with some luxurious agony, 

The nerve-dissolving melody 

Flutter'd headlonsf from the skv. 



III. 



And then I look'd up toward a mountain-tract, 
That girt the region with high cliff and lawn: 
I saw that every morning, far ^vithdrawn 
Beyond the darkness and the cataract, 
God made himself an awful rose of dawn. 
Unheeded: and detaching, fold by fold, 
From those still heights, and, slowly drawing near, 
A vapor heavy, huelcss, formless, cold. 
Came floating on for many a month and vear, 
Unheeded: and I thought I would have spoken, 
And warn'd that madman ere it grew too late: 
But, as in dreams, I could not. Mine was broken. 
When that cold vapor touch'd the palace-gate, 
And link'd again. I saw within my head 
A gray and gap-tooth'd man as lean as death, 
Who slowly rode across a wither'd heath. 
And lighted at a ruin'd inn and said : 



IV. 

" Wrinkled ostler, grim and thin ! 

Here is custom come your way, 
Take my brute, and lead him in. 

Stuff his ribs with mouldy hay. 

" Bitter bar-maid, waning fasti 
See that sheets are on my bed; 

What! the flower of life is past: 
It is long before you wed. 



THE VISION OF SIN. 313 



" Slip-shod waiter, lank and sour, 
At the Dragon on the heath! 

Let us have a quiet hour. 

Let us hob-and-nob with Death. 

" I am old, but let me drink; 

Bring me spices, bring me wine-, 
I remember, when I think. 

That my youth was half divine. 

" Wine is good for shrivell'd lips. 
When a blanket wraps the day. 

When the rotten woodland drips. 
And the leaf is stamp'd in clay. 

" Sit thee down, and have no shame, 
Cheek by jowl, and knee by knee: 

What care I for any name? 
What for order or degree ? 

" Let me screw thee up a peg : 

Let me loose thy tongue with wine: 

Callest thou that thing a leg? 

Which is thinnest? thine oi^ mine? 



" Thou shalt not be saved by works: 

Thou hast been a sinner too : 
Ruin'd trunks on wither'd forks, 

Empty scarecrows, I and you! 

" Fill the cup, and fill the can: 
Have a rouse before the morn : 

Every moment dies a man. 
Every moment one is born. 

" We are men of ruin'd blood ; 

Therefore comes it we are wise. 
Fish are we that love the mud. 

Rising to no fancy-flies. 

"Name and fame! to fly sublime 

Thro' the courts, the camps, the schools 



14 THE VISION OF SIN. 



Is to be the ball of Time, 

Bandied in the hands of fools. 

" Friendship! — to be two in one — 

Let the canting Har pack ! 
Well I know, when I am gone, 

How she mouths behind my back. 

" Virtue! — to be good and just — 
Every heart, when sifted well. 

Is a clot of warmer dust, 

Mix'd with cunning sparks of hell. 

" O! we too as well can look 

Whited thought and cleanly life 

As the priest, above his book 
Leerinor at his neisrhbor's wife. 

"Fill the cup, and fill the can: 
Have a rouse before the morn 

Every moment dies a man, 
Every moment one is born. 

" Drink, and let the parties rave ; 

They are fiU'd with idle spleen* 
Rising, falling, like a wave, 

For they know not what they mean. 

"^He that roars for liberty 

Faster binds a tyrant's power; 

And the tyrant's cruel glee 
Forces on the freer hour. 

'•' Fill the can, and fill the cup: 
All the windy ways of men 

Are but dust that rises up. 
And is lightly laid again. 

" Greet her with applausive breath, 
Freedom, gayly doth she tread; 

In her right a civic v/reath, 
In her left a human head. 



THE VISION OF SIN. ^15 

" No, I love not what is new; 

She is of an ancient house; 
And I think we know the hue 

Of that cap upon her browSo 

" Let her go! her thirst she slakes 

Where, the bloody conduit runs: 
Then her sweetest meal she makes 

On the first-born of her sons. 

" Drink to lofty hopes that cool — 

Visions of a perfect State : 
Drink we, last, the public fool, 

Frantic love and frantic hate. 

" Chant me now some Avicked stave, 

Till thy drooping courage rise. 
And the glow-worm of the grave 

Glimmer in thv rheumv eves. 



" Fear not thou to loose thy tongue; 
Set thy hoary fancies free; 

What is loathsome to the young- 
Savors well to thee and me. 

" Change, reverting to the years, 
When thy nerves could understand 

What there is in loving tears, 

And the warmth of hand in hand. 

" Tell me tales of thy first love — 
April hopes, the fools of chance : 

Till the graves begin to move. 
And the dead begin to dance. 

" Fill the can, and fill the cup: 
All the w^ndy \vavs of men 

Are but dust that rises up. 
And is lightly laid again. 

" Trooping from their mouldy dens 
The chap-fallen circle spreads: 



316 THE VISION OF SIN. 



Welcome, fellow-citizens, 

Hollow hearts and empty heads! 

" You are bones, and what of that? 

Every face, however full. 
Padded round with flesh and fat, 

Is but modell'd on a skull. 



" Death is king, and Vivat Rex! 

Tread a measure on the stones. 
Madam — if I know your sex. 

From the fashion of vour bones. 



" No, I cannot praise the fire 
In your eye — nor yet your lip : 

All the more do I admire 

Joints of cunning workmanship. 

" Lo! God's likeness — the ground-plan 
Neither modell'd, glazed, or framed: 

Buss me, thou rough sketch of man, 
Far too naked to be shamed! 

" Drink to Fortune, drink to Chance, 
While we keep a little breath! 

Drink to heavy Ignorance! 

Hob-and-nob with brother Death! 

" Thou art mazed, the night is long, 
And the longer night is near: 

W^hat! I am not all as wrong 
As a bitter jest is dear. 

" Youthful hopes, by scores, to all, 
When the locks are crisp and curl'd; 

Unto me my maudlin gall 

And nay mockeries of the world. 

*' Fill the cup, and fill the can! 

Mingle madness, mingle scorn! 
Dregs of life, and lees of man: 

Yet we will not die forlorn." 



MOVE EASTWARD, HAPPT EARTH. 



317 



The voice grew faint: there came a further change; 

Once more uprose the mystic mountain range: 

Below were men and horses pierc'd with worms, 

And slowly quickening into lower forms; 

By shards and scurf of salt, and scum of dross. 

Old plash of rains, and refuse patch'd ^vith moss. 

Then some one spake : " Behold ! it was a crime 

Of sense aveng'd by sense that wore with time." 

Another said: " The crime of sense became 

The crime of malice, and is equal blame." 

And one: " He had not wholly quench'd his power; 

A little grain of conscience made him sour." 

At last I heard a voice upon the slope 

Cry to the summit, " Is there any hope? " 

To which an answer peal'd from that high land, 

But in a tongue no man could understand; 

And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn 

God made himself an awful rose of dawn. 



MOVE EASTWARD, HAPPT EARTH. 




OVE eastward, happy earth, and leave 
Yon orange sunset waning slow: 

From fringes of the faded eve, 
O, happy planet, eastward go: 

Till over thy dark shoulder glow 
Thy silver sister-world, and rise 

To glass herself in dewy eyes 
That watch me from the glen below. 



Ah, bear me with thee, lightly borne, 
Dip forward under starry light. 

And move me to my marriage morn, 
And round again to happy night. 



818 



BREAK, BREAK, BREAK. 



iij% 





feREAK, break, break, 
pOn thy cold gray stones, O Sea! 
And I "would that my tongue could utter 
The thoughts that arise in me. 



O ^vell for the fisherman's boy, 

That he shouts with his sister at play ! 

O well for the sailor lad. 

That he sings in his boat on the bay ! 



And the stately ships go on 
To their haven under the hill; 

But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, 
And the sound of a voice that is still ! 



Break, break, break. 

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! 
But the tender grace of a day that is dead 

Will never come back to me. 



THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 321 



THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 




PROLOGUE. 



IR WALTER VIVIAN all a summer's day 
Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun 
Up to the people : thither flock'd at noon 
His tenants, wife and child, and thither half 
The neighboring borough with their Institute 
Of which he was the patron. I was there 
From college, visiting the son, — the son 
A Walter too, — with -others of our set. 
Five others: we were seven at Vivian-place. 

And me that morning Walter show'd the house 
Greek, set with busts: from vases in the hall 
Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names, 
Grew side by side; and on the pavement lay 
Carv'd stones of the Abbey-i'uin in the park. 
Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time; 

And on the tables every clime and age 

Jumbled together; celts and calumets. 

Claymore and snow-shoe, toj^s in lava, fans 

Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries. 

Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere. 

The curs'd Malayan crease, and battle-clubs 

From the isles of palm: and higher on the walls, 

Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer. 

His own forefathers' arms and armor hung. 

And " this," he said, " was Hugh's at Agincourt; 
And that was old Sir Ralph's at Ascalon : 
A good knight he! we keep a chronicle 
With all about him," which he brouglit, and I 
Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights 
Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kings 
Who laid about them at their wills and died; 
And mixt with these, a lady, one that arm'd 
Her own fair head, and sallying thro' the gate, 
Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls. 



21 



322 THE PRINCESS: A MED LET'. 

"O miracle of woman," said the book, 
" O noble heart who, being strait-besieg'd 
By this wild king to force her to his wifeh. 
Nor bent, nor broke, nor shunn'd a soldier's death, 
But now when all was lost or seem'd as lost — 
Her stature more than mortal in the burst 
Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on fire — 
Brake with a blast of trumpets from the gate, 
And, falling on them like a thunderbolt. 
She trampled some beneath her horses' heels. 
And some were whelm'd with missiles of the wall, 
And some were push'd \^dth lances from the rock. 
And part were drown'd within the whirling brook: 
O miracle of noble womanhood!" 

So sang the gallant glorious chronicle; 
And, I all rajDt in this, " Come out," he said, 
" To the Abbey : there is Aunt Elizabeth 
And sister Lilia with the rest." We went 
(I kept the book and had my finger in it) 
Down thro' the park: strange was the sight to me; 
For all the sloping pasture murmur'd, so\vn 
With happy faces and with holiday. 
There moved the multitude, a thousand heads : 
The patient leaders of their Institute 
Taught them ^vith facts. One rear'd a font of stone 
And drew from butts of water on the slope. 
The fountain of the moment, playing now 
A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls. 
Or steep-up spout whereon the gilded ball 
Danc'd like a wisp: and somewhat lower down, 
A man with knobs and wires and vials fired 
A cannon : Echo answer'd in her sleep 
Froin hollow fields : and here were telescopes 
For azure vie\vs: and there a group of girls 
In circle waited, whom the electric shock 
Dislink'd with shrieks and laughter: round the lake 
A little clock-work steamer paddling plied 
And shook the lilies; perch'd about the knolls 
A dozen angry models jetted steam : 
A petty railway ran : a fire-balloon 
• Rose gem-like np before the dusky groves 
And dropt a fairy parachute and past : 
And there thro' twenty posts cf telegraph 
They flash'd a saucy message to iuid fro 



THR j^ltiNCESS: A MEDLEY. 323 



Between the mimic stations; so that sport 
Went hand in hand with Science; otherwhere 
Pure sport: a herd of boys with clamor bowl'd 
And stump'd the wicket; babies roll'd about 
Like tumbled fruit in grass; and men and maids 
Arrang'd a country dance, rmd flew thro' light 
And shadow, while the twangling violin 
Struck up with Soldier-laddie, and overhead 
The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty lime 
Made noise with bees and breeze from end to end. 

Strange was the sight and smacking of the time; 
And long we gazed, but satiated at length 
Came to the ruins. High-arch'd and ivy-claspt, 
Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire. 
Thro' one wide chasm of time and frost they gave 
<The park, th3 crowd, the house; but all within 
The SAvard was trim as any garden lawn: 
And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth, 
And Lilia with the rest, and lady friends 
From neighbor seats: and there was Ralph himself, 
A broken statue propt against the wall, 
As gay as any. Lilia wild witii sport. 
Half child, half woman as she was, had wound 
A scarf of orange round the stony helm. 
And robed the shoulders in a rosy silk. 
That made the old warrior from his ivied nook 
Glow like a sunbeam: near his tomb a feast 
Shone, silver-set; about it lay the guests, 
And there we join'd them : then the maiden Aunt 
Took this fair day for text, and from it preach'd 
An universal culture for the crowd. 
And all things great; but we, unworthier, told 
Of college: he had climb'd across the spikes, 
And he had squeez'd himself betwixt the bars, 
And he had breath'd the Proctor's dogs; and one 
Discuss'd his tutor, rough to common men. 
But honeying at the whisper of a lord ; 
And one the Master, as a rogue in grain, 
Veneer'd with sanctimonious theory. 

But while they talk'd, iibove their heads I saw 
The feudal warrior lady-clad ; which brought 
My book to mind : and opening this I read 
Of old Sir Ralph a page or two that rang 



324 THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 

With tilt and tourney; then the tale of her 
That drove her foes with slaughter from her walls, 
And much I prais'd her nobleness, and " Where," 
Ask'd Walter, patting Lilia's head (she lay 
Beside him) " lives there such a woman now?" 

Quick answer'd Lilia, " There are thousands now 
Such women, but convention beats them down: 
It is but bringing up; no more than that: 
You men have done it; how I hate vou all! 
Ah! ^vere I something great! I wish I were 
Som.e mighty poetess, I would shame you then. 
That love to keep us children! O I wish 
That I were some great princess, I would build 
Far off from men a college like a man's, 
And I would teach them all that men are taught; 
We are twice as quick ! " And here she shook aside 
The hand that played the patron with her curlsj» 

And one said sluiling, " Pretty were the sight 
If our old halls could change their sex, and flaunt 
With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans. 
And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair. 
I think they should not wear our rusty gowns. 
But move as rich as Emperor-moths or Ralph 
Who shines so in the corner: yet I fear. 
If there were many Lilias in the brood. 
However deep you might embower the nest 
Some boy would spy it." 

At this upon the sward 
She tapt her tiny silken-sandal'd foot : 
" That's your light way : but I ^vould make it death 
For any male thing but to peep at us." 

Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laugh'd; 
A rose-bud set with little wilful thorns, 
And sweet as English air could make her, she: 
But Walter hail'd a score of names upon her. 
And " petty Ogress," and "ungrateful Puss," 
And swore he long'd at college, onh^ long'd, 
All else was well, for she-society. 
They boated and they cricketed; they talk'd 
At wine, in clubs, of art, of politics; 
They lost their weeks; they vext the souls of deans; 



THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 325 

They rode; they betted; made a hundred friends, 
And caught the blossom of the flying terms, 
But miss'd the mignonette of Vivian-place, 
The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke, 
Part banter, part affection. 

" True,'' she said, 
'^ We doubt not that. O yes, you miss'd us much. 
I'll stake my ruby ring upon it, you did." 

She held it out; and as a parrot turns 
Up thro' gilt wires a crafty loving ej^e. 
And takes a lady's finger with all care, 
And bites it for true heart and not for harm. 
So he with Lilia's. Daintily she shriek'd 
And wrung it. " Doubt my word again! " he said. 
" Come, listen! here is proof that you were miss'd: 
We seven stay'd at Christmas up to read. 
And there we took one tutor as to read: 
The hard-grain'd Muses of the cube and square 
Were out of season: never man, I think. 
So moulder'd in a sinecure as he: 
For while our cloisters echo'd frostv feet, 
And our long walks were stript as bare as brooms. 
We did but talk you over, pledge you all 
In wassail : often, like as many girls — 
vSick for the hollies and the yews of home — 
As many little trifling Lilias — play'd 
Charades and riddles as at Christmas here, 
And ivhafs my thought and when and where and how^ 
And often told a tale from mouth to mouth 
As here at Christmas." 

She remembered that: 
A pleasant game, she thought: she liked it more 
Than magic music, forfeits, all the rest. 
But these — what kind of tales did men tell men. 
She wonder'd, by themselves? 

A half-disdain 
Perch'd on the pouted blossom of her lips: 
And Walter nodded at me; He began. 
The rest would follow, each in turn ; and so 
We forg'd a sevenfold story. Kind.? what kind.? 
Chimeras, crotchets, Christmas solecisms. 
Seven-headed monsters only made to kill 
Time by the fire in winter." 



. cm 

326 THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 



" Kill him now, 
The tyrant! kill him in the summer too," 
Said Lilia ; " Why not now," the maiden Aunt. 
" Why not a summer's as a winter's tale? 
A tale for summer as befits the time. 
And something it should be to suit the place. 
Heroic, for a hero lies beneath. 
Grave, solemn! " 

Walter warp'd his mouth at this 
To something so mock-solemn, that I laugh'd 
And Lilia woke with sudden-shrilling mirth 
And echo like a ghostly woodpecker, 
Hid in the ruins; till the maiden Aunt 
(A little sense of wrong had touch'd her face 
With color) turn'd to me with " As you will; 
Heroic if you will, or what you will. 
Or be yourself your hero if you will." 
" Take Lilia, then, for heroine," clamor'd he, 
" And make her some great Princess, six feet high, 
Grand, epic, homicidal ; and be you 
The Prince to win her!" 

" Then follow me, the Prince," 
I answer'd, " each be hero in his turn! . 
Seven and yet one, like shadows in a dream. — 
Heroic seems our Princess as requir'd — 
But something made to suit with time and place, 
A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house, 
A talk of college and of ladies' rights, 
A feudal knight in silken masquerade. 
And, yonder, shrieks and strange experiments 
For which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them all- 
This were a medley! we should have him back 
Who told the ' Winter's tale ' to do it for us. 
No matter: we will say whatever comes. 
And let the ladies sing us, if they will. 
From time to time, some ballad or a song 
To give us breathing-space." 

So I began. 
And the rest follow'd : and the women sang 
Between the rougher voices of the men. 
Like Hnnets in the pauses of the wind: 
And here I give the story and the songs. 



...t.:^. -.^ 



-t'^r^x 













^And echo like a ghostly woodpecker." 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 327 



A Prince I was, blue-eyec], and fair in face, 
Of temper amorous, as the first of May, 
With lengths of yellow ringlet, like a girl, 
For on my cradle shone the Northern star. 

There lived an ancient legend in our house. 
Some sorcerer, whom a far-off grandsire burnt 
Because he cast no shadow, had foretold. 
Dying, that none of all our blood should know 
The shadow from the substance, and that one 
Should come to fight with shadows and to fall. 
For so, my mother said, the story ran, 
And, truly, waking dreams w^ere, more or less, 
An old and strange afifection of the house. 
Myself, too, had weird seizures. Heaven knows what: 
On a sudden in the midst of men and day, 
And while I walk'd and talk'd as heretofore, 
I seem'd to move among a world of ghosts, 
And feel myself the shadow of a dream. 
Our great court-Galen pois'd his gilt-head cane, 
And paw'd his beard, and mutter'd " catalepsy." 
My mother pitying, made a thousand prayers; 
My mother was as mild as any saint, 
Half-canoniz'd by all that look'd on her, 
So gracious was her tact and tenderness: 
But my good father thought a king a king; 
He cared not for the affection of the house; 
He held his sceptre like a pedant's wand 
To lash offence, and with long arms and hands 
Reach'd out, and pick'd offenders from the mass 
For judgment. 

Now it chanced that I had been, 
While life was yet in bud and blade, betroth'd 
To one, a neighboring Princess: she to me 
Was proxy-wedded with a bootless calf 
At eight years old; and still from time to time 
Came murmurs of her beauty from the South, 
And of her brethren, youths of puissance; 
And still I wore her picture by my heart, 
And one dark tress; and all around them both 
Svv^eet thoughts would swarm as bees about their queen. 



328 THE PRINCESS: A MEDLET. 



But when the days drew nigh that I should wed, 
My father sent ambassadors with furs 
And jewels, gifts, to fetch her: these brought back 
A present, a great labor of the loom; 
And therewithal an answer vague as wind: 
Besides, they saw the king; he took the gifts; 
He said there was a compact; that was true: 
But then she had a will; was he to blame? 
And maiden fancies; loved to live alone 
Among her women; certain, would not vs^ed. 

That morning in the presence room I stood 
With Cyril and with Florian, my two friends: 
The first, a gentleman of broken means 
(His father's fault) but given to starts and bursts 
Of revel ; and the last, my other heart. 
And almost my half-self, for still we moved 
Together, twinn'd as horse's ear and eye. 

Now, while they spake, I saw my father's face 
Grow long and troubled like a rising moon, 
Inflam'd with wrath: he started on his feet. 
Tore the king's letter, snow'd it down, and rent 
The wonder of the loom thro' warp and woof 
From skirt to skirt; and at the last he sware 
That he would send a hundred thousand men, 
And bring her in a whirlwind: then he chew'd 
The thrice-turn'd cud of wrath, and cook'd his spleen, 
Communing with his captains of the war. 

At last I spoke. "My father, let me go. 
It cannot be but some gross error lies 
III this report, this answer of a king. 
Whom all men rate as kind and hospitable: 
Or, maybe, I myself, my bride once seen, 
Whate'er my grief to find her less than fame, 
May rue the bargain made." And Florian said: 
" I have a sister at the foreign court. 
Who moves about the Princess; she, you know, 
Who wedded with a nobleman from thence: 
He, dying lately, left her, as I hear. 
The lady of three castles in that land: 
Thro' her this matter might be sifted clean." 
And Cyril whisper'd: " Take me with you too." 







" High arch'd and ivy-claspt, 
Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire." 



THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 329 

Then laughing " what, if these weird seizures come 
Upon you in those lands, and no one near 
To point you out the shadow from the truth! 
Take me; I'll serve you better in a strait; 
I grate on rusty hinges here : " but " Xo ! " 
Roar'd the rough king, "you shall not; we ourself 
Will crush her pretty maiden fancies dead 
In iron gauntlets: break the council up." 

But when the council broke, I rose and past 
Thro' the wild woods that hung about the town; 
Found a still place, and pluck'd her likeness out; 
Laid it on flowers, and watch'd it lying bathed 
In the green gleam of dewy-tassell'd trees: 
What w^ere those fancies? wherefore break her troth? 
Proud look'd the lips: but wdiile I meditated 
A wind arose and rush'd upon the South, 
And shook the songs, the whispers, and the shrieks 
Of the wild woods together; and a V^oice 
Went with it, " Follow, follow, thou shalt win." 

Then, ere the silver sickle of that month 
Became her golden shield, I stole from court 
With Cyril and with Florian, unperceiv'd, 
Cat-footed thro' the town, and half in dread 
To hear my father's clamor at our backs 
With Ho! from some bay-window shake the night; 
But all was quiet: from the bastion'd walls. 
Like threaded spiders, one by one, we dropt, 
And flying reach'd the frontier: then we crost 
To a livelier land; and so by tilth and grange. 
And vines, and blowing bosks of wilderness, 
We gain'd the mother-city thick with towers, 
And in the imperial palace found the king. 

His name was Gama; crack'd and small his voice, 
But bland the smile that like a wrinkling wind 
On glassy water drove his cheek in lines; 
A little dry old man, without a star, 
Not like a king: three days he feasted us, 
And on the fourth I spake of why we came, 
And my betroth'd. "You do us. Prince," he said, 
Airing a snowy hand and signet gem, 
" All honor. We remember love ourselves 



330 THE PRINCESS: A MEDLE1\ 



In our sweet youth : there did a compact pass 

Long summers back, a kind of ceremony — 

I think the year in which our oHves fail'd. 

I would you had her, Prince, with all my heart, 

With mv full heart: but there were widows here. 

Two widows, lady Psyche, lady Blanche, 

Thev fed her theories, in and out of place 

Maintaining that with equal husbandry 

The woman \vere an equal to the inan. 

Thev harp'd on this; with this our banquets rang; 

Our dances broke and buzz'd in knots of talk; 

Nothing but this; my very ears were hot 

To hear them: knowledge, so my daughter held, 

Was all in all; they had but been, she thought, 

As children; they must lose the child, assume 

The woman: then. Sir, awful odes she wrote, 

Too awful, sure, for what they treated of. 

But all she is and does is awful; odes 

About this losing of the child; and rhymes 

And dismal Ivrics, prophesying change 

Bevond all reason: these the women sang; 

And thev that know such things — I sought but peace; 

No critic I — would call them masterpieces; 

Thev masler'd me. At last she begg'd a boon 

A certain summer-palace which I have 

Hard by your father's frontier: I said no. 

Yet being an easy man, gave it; and there, 

All wild to found a University 

For maidens, on the spur she fled; and more 

AVe know not, — only this; they see no men, 

Not ev'n her brother Arac, nor the twins 

Her brethren, tho' they love her, look upon her 

As on a kind of paragon; and I 

(Pardon me saying it) were much loathe to breed 

Dispute betwixt myself and mine; but since 

(And I confess \vith right) vou think me bound 

In some sort, I can give vou letters to her; 

And yet, to speak the truth, I rate your chance 

Almost at naked nothing." 

Thus the king; 
And I, tho' nettled that he seem'd to slur 
AVith garrulous ease and oily courtesies 
Our formal compact, yet, not less (all frets 
But chafing me on fire to find my bride) 
Went forth asrain with both mv friends. We rode 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 331 

Many a long league back to the north. At last 
From hills, that look'd across a land of hope, 
We (Iropt with evening on a rustic town 
Set in a gleaming river's crescent-curve. 
Close at the boundary of the liberties; 
There enter'd an old hostel, call'd mine host 
To council, plied him vv^ith his richest wines, 
And show'd the late-writ letters of the king. 

He with a long low sibilation, stared 
As blank as death in marble; then exclaim'd 
Averring;- it vv^as clear ag-ainst all rules 
For any man to go: but as his brain 
Began to mellow, " If the king," he said, 



Had given us letters, was he bound to speak 



The king would bear him out;" and at the last — 
The summer of the vine in all his veins — 
" No doubt that he might make it worth his while. 
She once had past that way; he heard her spea.k; 
She scared him; life! he never saw the like; 
She look'd as grand as doomsday and as grave: 
And he, he reverenc'd his liege-lady there; 
He always made a point to post w^ith mares; 
His daughter and his housemaid were the boys: 
The land, he understood, for miles about 
Was till'd by women'; all the swine were sows. 
And all the dogs" — 

But while he jested thus, 
A thought flash'd thro' me which I cloth'd in act, 
Remembering how we three presented Maid 
Or Nymph, or Goddess, at high tide of feast, 
In masque or pageant at my father's court. 
We sent mine host to purchase female gear; 
He brought it, and himself, a sight to shake 
The midriff of despair with laughter, holp 
To lace us up, till, each, in maiden plumes 
We rustled : him we gave a costly bribe 
To guerdon silence, mounted our good steeds, 
And boldly ventured on the liberties. 

We follow'd up the river as we rode, 
And rode till midnight when the college lights 
Began to glitter firefly-like in copse 
And linden alley: then we past an arch. 



332 



THE PRINCESS: A MED LET, 



Whereon a woman-statue rose with wings 

From four-wing'd horses dark against the stars; 

And some inscription ran along the front, 

But deep in shado-w : further on we gain'd 

A httle street, half garden and half house; 

But scarce could hear each other speak for noise 

Of clocks and chimes, like silver hammers falling 

On silver anvils, and the splash and stir 

Of fountains spouted up and showering down 

In meshes of the jasmine and the rose; 




And all about us peal'd the nightingale, 
Rapt in her song, and careless of the snare. 



There stood a bust of Pallas for a sign, 
By two sphere lamps blazon'd like Heaven and Earth 
With constellation and with continent, 
Above an entry: riding in, we call'd; 
A plump-arm'd Ostieress, and a stable wench 
Came running at the call, and help'd us down. 
Then stept a buxom hostess forth, and sail'd. 
Full blown, before us into rooms which gave 
Upon a pillar'd porch, the bases lost 
In laurel: her we ask'd of that and this. 
And who were tutors. " Lady Blanche," she said, 
" And Lady Psyche." " Which was prettiest, 
Best natured?" " Lady Psyche." "Hers are we," 
One voice, we cried; and I sat down and wrote. 
In such a hand as when a field of corn 
Bows all its ears before the roaring East: 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 333 

" Three ladies of the Northern empire pray 
Your Highness would enroll them with your own, 
As Lady Psyche's pupils." 

This I seal'd : 
The seal was Cupid bent above a scroll, 
And o'er his head Uranian Venus hung, 
And rais'd the blinding bandage from his 6)^68: 
I gave the letter to be sent with dawn : 
And then to bed, where half in doze I seem'd 
To float about a glimmering night, and watch 
A full sea glazed with muffled moonlight, swell 
On some dark shore just seen that it was rich. 



As through the land at eve we went, 

And pluck'd the ripen'd ears, 
We fell out, my wife and I, 
O we fell out I know not why, 
And kiss'd again with tears. 

And blessings on the falling out 

That all the more endears, 
When we fall out with those we love 

And kiss again with tears ! 

For when we came where lies the child 

We lost in other years, 
There above the little grave, 
O there above the little grave, 

We kiss'd again with tears. 



II. 



At break of day the College Portress came: 

She brought us Academic silks, in hue 

The lilac, with a silken hood to each. 

And zoned with gold; and now when these were on, 

And we as rich as moths from dusk cocoons, 

She, curtseying her obeisance, let us know 

The Princess Ida waited: out we paced, 

I first, and following thro' the porch that sang 

All round with laurel, issued in a court 

Compact of lucid marbles, boss'd with lengths 

Of classic frieze, with ample awnings gay 

Betwixt the pillars, and with great urns of flowers. 

The Muses and the Graces, group'd in threes, 



334 THE PRINCESS: A MEDLET. 

Enring'd a billowing fountain in the midst; 
And here and there on lattice edges lay 
Or book or lute; but hastily we past, 
And up a flight of stairs into the hall. 

There at a board by tome and paper sat, 
With two tame leopards couch'd beside her throne, 
All beauty compass'd in a female form, 
The Princess; liker to the inhabitant 
Of some clear planet close upon the sun. 
Than our man's earth; such eyes were in her head, 
And so much grace and power, breathing down 
From over her arch'd brows, with every turn 
Lived thro' her to the tips of her long hands. 
And to her feet. She rose her height, and said: 

" We give you welcome : not without redound 
Of use and glory to yourselves ye come. 
The first fruits of the stranger: aftertime. 
And that full voice which circles round the grave. 
Will rank you nobly, mingled up with me. 
What! are the ladies of your land so tall? " 
" We of the court," said Cyril. " From the court," 
She answer'd, " then ye know the Prince?" and he: 
" The climax of his age ! as tho' there were 
One rose in all the world, your Highness that. 
He worships your ideal." She replied: 
"We scarcely thought in our own hall to hear 
This barren verbiage, current among men, 
Like coin, the tinsel clink of compliment. 
Your flight from out your bookless wilds would seem 
As arguing love of knowledge and of power; 
Your language proves you still the child. Indeed, 
We dream not of him : when we set our hand 
To this great work, we purpos'd with ourself 
Never to wed. You likewise will do well, 
Ladies, in entering here, to cast and fling 
The tricks, which make us toys of men, that so. 
Some future time, if so indeed you will. 
You may with those self-styled our lords ally 
Your fortunes, justlier balanc'd, scale with scale." 

At those high w^ords, w^e, conscious of ourselves, 
Perus'd the matting; then an officer 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLET. 335 



Rose up, and read the statutes, such as these: 

Not for three years to correspond with home ; 

Not for three 3' ears to cross the hberties : 

Not for three 3'ears to speak with any men; 

And many more, which hastily subscribed, 

We enter'd on the boards; and "Now," she cried, * 

" Ye are green wood, see 3^e warp not. Look, our hall! 

Our statues! — not of those that men desire, 

Sleek Odalisques, or oracles of mode. 

Nor stunted squaws of West or East: but she 

That taught the Sabine how to rule, and she 

The foundress of the Babylonian wall. 

The Carian Artemisia strong in war. 

The Rhodope, that built the pyramid, 

Clelia, Cornelia, with the Palm3n-ene 

That fought Aurelian, and the Roman brows 

Of Agrippina. Dwell with these and lose 

Convention, since to look on noble forms 

Makes noble thro' the sensuous organism 

That which is higher. O lift your natures up: 

Embrace our aims: work out yowx freedom. Girls, 

Knowledge is now no more a fountain seal'd : 

Drink deep, until the habits of the slave, 

The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite 

And slander, die. Better not be at all 

Than not be noble. Leave us: 3^ou may go: 

To-da3^ the Lad3^ Psyche will harangue 

The fresh arrivals of the week before; 

For they press in from all the provinces, 

And filf the hive." 

She spoke, and bowing waved 
Dismissal: back again we crost the court 
To Lady Ps\'che's: as we enter'd in. 
There sat along the forms, like morning doves 
That sun their milky bosoms on the thatch, 
A patient range of pupils; she herself 
Erect behind a desk of satin-v^ood, 
A quick brunette, well-moulded, falcon-eyed. 
And on the hither side, or so she look'd.^ 
Of twenty summers. At her left, a child, 
In shining draperies, headed like a star. 
Her maiden babe, a double April old, 
Aglaia slept. We sat: the Lady glanc'd: 
Then Florian, but no livelier than the dame 



336 THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 



That whisper'd " Asses' ears" among the sedge, 
" My sister." " Comely, too, by all that's fair," 
Said Cyril. " O hush, hush! " and she began. 

" This world was once a fluid haze of light, 
Till toward the centre set the starry tides. 
And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast 
The planets: then the monster, then the man; 
Tattoo'd or woaded, winter-clad in skins. 
Raw from the prime, and crushing down his mate; 
As yet we find in barbarous isles, and here 
Among the lowest." 

Thereupon she took 
A bird's eye view of all the ungracious past; 
Glanc'd at the legendary Amazon 
As emblematic of a nobler age; 
Apprais'd the Lycian custom, spoke of those 
That lay at ^vine with Lar and Lucumo; 
Ran down the Persian, Grecian, Roman lines 
Of empire, and the woman's state in each, 
How far from just; till, warming with her theme, 
She fulmin'd out her scorn of laws Salique 
And little-footed China, touch'd on Mahomel 
With much contempt, and came to chivahy: 
When some respect, however slight, was paid 
To w^oman, superstition all awry : 
However then commenc'd the dawn: a beam 
Had slanted forward, falling in a land 
Of promise; fruit would follow. Deep, indeed. 
Their debt of thanks to her v^ho first had dared 
To leap the rotten pales of prejudice, 
Disyoke their necks from custom, and assert 
None lordlier than themselves but that which made 
Woman and man. She had founded; they must build. 
Here might they learn whatever men were taught: 
Let them not fear: some said their heads were less: 
Some men's were small; not they the least of men; 
For often fineness com^pensated size: 
Besides the brain was like the hand, and grew 
With using; thence the man's, if more, was more J 
He took advantage of his strength to be 
First in the field: some ages had been lost; 
But woman ripen'd earlier, and her life 
Was longer; and albeit their glorious names 
Were fewer, scatter'd stars, yet since in truth 




♦'Thro' the wild woods that hung about the town." 

See ;page j2g. 



THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 



337 



The highest is the measure of the man, 

And not the Kaffir, Hottentot, Malay, 

Nor those horn-handed breakers of the glebe. 

But Homer, Plato, Verulam ; even so 

With woman: and in arts of government ' 

Elizabeth and others; arts of war 

The peasant Joan and others: arts of grace 

Snppho and others vied with any man: 

And, last not least, she who had left her place, 

And bow'd her state to them, that they might gro'jV 

To use and power on this Oasis, lapt 

In the arms of leisure, sacred from the blight 

Of ancient influence and scorn? 

At last 
She rose upon a wind of prophecy 
Dilating on the future ; " everywhere 
Two heads in council, two beside the hearth, 
Two in the tangled business of the w^orld, 
Tv\^o in the liberal offices of life. 
Two plummets dropt for one to sound the abyss 
Of science, and the secrets of the mind: 
Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more: 
And everywhere the broad and bounteous earth 
Should bear a double growth of those rare souls. 
Poets, whose thoughts enrich the blood of the world. 

She ended here, and beckon'd us : the rest 
Parted; and, glowing full-faced welcome, she 
Began to address us, and was moving on 




In gratulation, till as when a boat 

Tacks, and the slacken'd sail flaps, all her voice 



22 



338 THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 

Faltering and fluttering in her throat, she cried, 
" My brothel- ! " " Well, my sister." " O, " she said, 
" What do you here? and in this dress? and these? 
Why who are these? a wolf w^ithin the fold! 
A pack of wolves! the Lord be gracious to me! 
A plot, a plot, a plot to ruin all! " 
"No plot, no plot," he'answer'd. "Wretched boy, 
How saw you not the inscription on tlie gate. 
Let no man enter in on pain of death? " 
• " And if I had," he answer'd, " who could think 

The softer Adams of your Academe, 

sister. Sirens the' they be, were such 

As chanted on the blanching bones of men ? " 

" But you will find it otherwise," she said. 

" You jest: ill jesting with edge-tools! my vow 

Binds me to speak, and O that iron will. 

That axelike edge unturnable, our Head, 

The Princess." " Well then, Psyche, take my life, 

And nail me like a weasel on a grange 

For warning: bury me beside the gate. 

And cut this epitaph above my bones; 

Here lies a brother by a sister slain ^ 

All for the common good of ivoinankindP 

"Let me die too," said Cyril, "having seen 

And heard the Lady Psyche." 

I struck in : 
" Albeit so mask'd. Madam, T love the truth; 
Receive it; and in me behold the Prince 
Your countryman, affianc'd years ago 
To the Lady Ida: here, for here she was. 
And thus (what other way was left?) I came." 
*' O Sir, O Prince, I have no country; none; 
If any, this; but none. Whate'er I was 
Disrooted, what I am is grafted here. 
Affianc'd, Sir? love-whispers may not breathe 
'Within this vestal limit, and how should I, 
Who am not mine, say, live: the thunderbolt 
Hangs silent; but prepare: I speak; it falls." 
" Yet pause," I said : " for that inscription there, 

1 think no more of deadly lurks therein, 
Than in a clapper clapping in a garth. 

To scare the fowl from fruit: if more there be, 
If more and acted on, what follows? war; 
Your own w^ork marr'd: for this your Academe, 
Whichever side be Victor, in the halloo 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLE7\ 339 

Will topple to the trumpet down, and pass ^ 

With all fair theories only, made to gild 
A stormless summer." " Let the Princess judge 
Of that," she said: "farewell, Sir — and to you. 
I shudder at the sequel, but I go." 

" Are you that Lady Psyche," I rejoin'd, 
" The fifth in line from that old Florian, 
Yet hangs his j^ortrait in my father's hall 
(The gaunt old baron with his beetle brow 
Sun-shaded in the heat of dusty fights) 
As he bestrode my Grandsire, when he fell. 
And all else fled : we point to it, and we say, 
The loyal warmth of Florian is not cold. 
But branches current yet in kindred veins." 

" Are you that Psyche," Florian added, " she 
With whom I sang about the morning hills. 
Flung ball, flew kite, and raced the purple fly. 
And snared the squirrel of the glen.? are you 
That Psyche, wont to bind my throbbing brow, 
To smooth my pillow, mix the foaming draught 
Of fever, tell me pleasant tales, and read 
My sickness down to happy dreams. f* are you 
That brother-sister Psyche, both in one? 
You were that Psyche, but what are you now.? " 

" You are that Psyche," Cyril said, " for whom 
I would be that forever which I seem. 
Woman, if I might sit beside your feet. 
And glean your scatter'd sapience." 

Then once more, 
" Are you that Lady Psyche," I began, 
" That on her bridal morn before she past 
From all her old companions, when the kino- 
Kiss'd her pale cheek, declar'd that ancient ties 
Would stillbe dear beyond the southern hills; 
That were there any of our people there 
In want or peril, there was one to hear 
And help them: look! for such are these and I." 



" Are you that Psyche," Florian ask'd, " to whom, 
In gentler days, your arrow-wounded fawn 



340 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 




Came flying while you sat beside the well? 

The creature laid his inuzzle on your lap, 

And sobb'd, and you sobb'd with it, and the blood 

Was sprinkled on your kirtle, and ^'^ou wept. 

That was fawn's blood, not brother's, yet you wept. 

O by the bright head of mv little niece. 

You were that Psyche, and what are you now?" 

" You are that Psyche," Cyril said again, 

"The mother of the sweetest little maid, 

That ever crdw'd for kisses." 

"Out upon it!" 
She answ^er'd, "peace! and \vhy should I not play 
The Spartan Mother with emotion, be 
The Lucius Junius Brutus of my kind? 
Him you call great; he for the common weal. 
The fading politics of mortal Rome, 



I 



THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 341 

As I might slay this child, if good need were, 

Slew both his sons; and I, shall I, on whom 

The secular emancipation turns 

Of half this world, be swerved from right to save 

A prince, a brother? a little will I yield. 

Best so, perchance, for us, and well for you. 

O hard, when love and duty clash! I fear 

My conscience will not count me Reckless; yet — 

Hear my conditions: promise (otherwise 

You perish) as you came to slip away, 

To-day, to-morrow, soon: it shall be said, 

These women were too barbarous, would not learn; 

They fled, who might have shamed us: promise, all," 

What could we else, we promised each; and she, 
Like some wild creature newly caged, commenc'd 
A to-and-fro, so pacing till she paus'd 
By Florian : holding out her lily arms 
Took both his hands, and smiling faintly said, 
*' I knew you at the first; tho' you have grown 
You scarce have alter'd : I am sad and glad 
To see thee, Florian. / give thee to death, 
My brother! it was duty spoke, not I. 
My needful seeming harshness, pardon it. 
Our mother, is she well? " 

With that she kiss'd 
His forehead, then, a moment after, clung 
About liim, and betwixt them blossom'd up 
From out a common vein of memory 
Sweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth, 
And far allusion, till the gracious dews 
Began to glisten and to fall : and while 
They stood, so rapt, we gazing, came a voice, 
" I brought a message here from Lady Blanche." 

Back started she, and turning round we saw 
The Lady Blanche's daughter where she stood, 
Melissa, with her hand upon the lock. 
A rosy blonde, and in a college gown. 
That clad her like an April daffodilly 
(Her mother's color) with her lips apart. 
And all her thoughts as fair within her eyes. 
As bottom agates seem to wave and float 
In crystal currents of clear morning seas. 



342 THE PRINCESS: A MEDLET. 

So stood that same fair creature at the cloon 
Then Lady Psyche, " Ah — Melissa — you ! 
You heard us?" and Melissa, "O pardon me! 
I heard, I could not help it, did not wish : 
But dearest Lady, pray you fear me not, 
Nor think I bear that heart within mv bieast, 
To oive three o-allant sfentlemen to death," 
" I trust you," said the other, "for we two 
Were always friends, none closer, elm and vine: 
But yet your mother's jealous temperament — 
Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or prove 
The Danaid of a leaky vase, for fear 
This whole foundation ruin, and I lose 
My honor, these their lives." " Ah, fear me not," 
Replied Alelissa; "no — I would not tell, 
No, not for all Aspasia's cleverness. 
No, not to answer. Madam, all those hard things 
That Sheba came to ask of Solomon." 
" Be it so," the other, " that we still may lead 
The new light up, and culminate in peace. 
For Soloinon may come ro Sheba yet." 
Said Cyril, " Madam, he the wisest man 
Feasted the woman wisest then, in halls 
Of Lebanonian cedar: nor should you 
(Tho' Madam _yc2^ should answer, we would ask) 
Less welcome find among us, if you came 
Among us, debtors for our lives to you. 
Myself for something more." He said not \vhat. 
But "Thanks," she answer'd, " go: we have been too long^ 
Together : keep your hoods about the face ; 
They do so that affect abstraction here. 
Speak little; mix not with the rest; and hold 
Your promise: all, I trust, may yet be well." 

We turn'd to go, but Cyril took the child. 
And held her round the knees against his waist, 
And blew the swoll'n cheek of a trumpeter. 
While Psyche watch'd them, smiling, and the child 
Push'd her flat hand against his face and laugh'd; 
And thus our conference clos'd. 

And then we strolled 
For half the day thro' stately theatres 
Bench'd crescent-wise. In each vv^e sat, w^e heard 
The grave Professor. On the lecture slate 
The circle rounded under female hands 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 343 

With flawless demonstration; follow'd then 

A classic lecture, rich in sentiment, 

With scraps of thunderous Epic lilted out 

By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies 

And quoted odes, and jewels five-words-long 

That on the stretch'd forefinger of all Time 

Sparkle forever: then we dipt in all 

That treats of whatsoever is, the state, 

The total chronicles of man, the mind. 

The morals, something of the frame, the rock, 

The star, the bird, the fish, the shell, the flower, 

Electric, chemic laws, and all the rest. 

And whatsoever can be taught and known ; 

Till like three horses that have broken fence. 

And glutted all night long breast-deep in corn, 

We issued gorged with knowledge, and I spoke; 

" Why sirs, they do all this as Vv^ell as we." 

"They hunt old trails," said Cyril, " very well; 

But when did woman ever yet invent?" 

" Ungracious!" ansv^er'd Florian, " have you learnt 

No more from Psyche's lecture, you that taik'd 

The trash that made me sick, and almost sad?" 

"O trash," he said, "but with a kernel in it. 

Should I not call her wise, who made me wise? 

And learnt? I learnt more from her in a flash, 

Than if m}' brainpan were an empty hull. 

And every Muse tumbled a science in. 

A thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls. 

And round these halls a thousand baby loves 

Fly twanging headless arrows at the hearts, 

Whence follows many a vacant pang; but O 

With me. Sir, enter'd in the bigger boy, 

The Head of all the golden-shafted fiim, 

The long limb'd lad that had a Psyche too; 

He cleft me through the stomacher: and now 

What think you of it, Florian? Do I chase 

The substance or the shadow? will it hold? 

I have no sorcerer's malison on me. 

No ghostly hauntings like his Highness. I 

Flatter myself that always everywhere 

I know the substance when I see it. Well, 

Are castles shadows? Three of them ? Is she 

The sweet proprietress a shadow? If not. 

Shall those three castles patch my tatter'd coat? 

For dear are those three castles to my wants. 



844 THE PRINCESS: A MED LET, 



And dear is sister Psyche to my heart, 
And two dear things are one of double worth. 
And much I might have said, but that my zone 
Unmann'd me: then the Doctors! O to hear 
The Doctors! O to watch the thirsty plants 
Imbibing! once or twice I thought to roar, 
To break mv chain, to shake my mane: but thou, 
Modulate me, Soul of mincing mimicry! 
Make liquid treble of that bassoon, my throat 
Abase those eyes that ever loved to meet 
Star-sisters answering under crescent brows; 
Abate the stride, which speaks of man, and loose 
A flying charm of blushes o'er this cheek, 
Where they like swallows coming out of time 
Will wonder wh}^ they came ; but hark the bell 
For dinner, let us go! " 

And in we stream'd 
Among the columns, pacing staid and still 
By twos and threes, till all from end to end 
With beauties every shade of brown and fair. 
In colors gayer than the morning mist. 
The long hall glitter'd like a bed of flowers. 
How might a man not wander from his wits 
Pierc'd thro' with eyes, but that I kept mine own 
Intent on her, who rapt in glorious dreams, 
The second-sight of some Astrsean age. 
Sat compass'd with professors; they, the while, 
Discuss'd a doubt and tost it to and fro: 
A clamor thicken'd, mixt with inmost terms 
Of art and science: Lady Blanche alone 
Of faded form and haughtiest lineaments. 
With all her autumn tresses falsely brov^^n, 
Shot sidelong daggers at us, a tiger-cat 
In act to spring. 

At last a solemn grace 
Concluded, and we sought the gardens: there 
One walk'd- reciting by herself, and one 
In this hand held a volume as to read, 
And smooth'd a peacock dov^n with that: 
Some to a low song oar'd a shallop by, 
Or under arches of the marble bridge 
Hung, shadow'd from. the heat: some hid and sought 
In the orange thickets: others tost a ball 
Above the fountain-jets, and back again 
With laughter; others lay about the lawns, 



THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 345 

Of the older sort, and niurmur'd that their May 

Was passing: what was learning unto them? 

They wish'd to marr}^; they could rule a house; 

Men hated learned women: but we three 

Sat muffled like the Fates; and often came 

Melissa hitting all we saw with shafts 

Of gentle satire, kin to charity, 

That harm'd not: then day droopt; the chapel bells 

Call'd us: \ve left the walks; we mixt with those 

Six hundred maidens clad in jourest white, 

Before two streams of light from wall to wall, 

While the great organ almost burst his pipes, 

Groaning for power, and rolling thro' the court 

A long melodious thunder to the sound 

Of solemn j^salms, and silver litanies. 

The work of Ida, to call down from Heaven 

A blessing on her labors for the world. 



Sweet and low, sweet and low, 

Wind of the western sea, 
Low, low, breathe and blow, 

Wind of the western sea! 
Over the rolling waters go, 
Come from the dying moon, and blow. 

Blow him again to me; 
While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. 

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest. 

Father will come to thee soon ; 
Rest, rest, on mother's breast, 

Father will come to thee soon ; 
Father will come to his babe in the nest, 
Silver sails all out of the west 

Under the silver moon: 
Sleep, my little one, sleep my pretty one, sleep. 



Morn in the white wake of the morning star 
Came furrow^ino- all the orient into sfold. 
We rose, and each by other drest with care . 
Descended to the court that lay three parts 
In shadow, but the Muses' heads were touch'd 
Above the darkness from their native East. 



346 THE PRINCESS: A MEDLE7\ 

There while we stood beside the fount and watch'd 
Or seem'd to watch the dancing bubble, approach'd 
Melissa, tinged with wan from lack of sleep. 
Or grief, and glowing round her dewy eyes 
The circled Iris of a night of tears; 
" And fly," she cried, " O fly, while yet 3^ou may! 
My mother knows: " and when I ask'd her how, 
" My fault," she wept, " my fault! and yet not mine; 
Yet mine in part. O hear me, pardon me. 
My mother, 'tis her wont from night to night 
To rail at Lady Psyche and her side. 
She says the Princess should have been the Head, 
Herself and Lady Psyche the two arms; 
And so it was agreed when first they came; 
But Lady Psyche was the right hand now, 
And she the left, or not, or seldom used ; 
Hers more than half the students, all the love. 
And so last night she fell to canvass you : 

" Her countrywomen ! she did not envy her. 
Who ever saw such w^ild barbarians? 
Girls? — more like men! " and at these words the snake, 
My secret, seem'd to stir within my breast; 
And O, Sirs, could I help it, but my cheek 
Began to burn and burn, and her lynx eye 
To fix and make me hotter, till she laugh'd : 
" O marvellously modest maiden, you! 
Men! girls, like men! why, if they had been men 
You need not set your thoughts in rubric thus 
For wholesome comment." Pardon, I am shamed 
That I must needs repeat for ni)^ excuse 
What looks so little graceful; " men" (for still 
My mother went revolving on the word) 
" And so the}^ are, — very like men indeed — 
And with that woman closeted for hours!" 
Then came these dreadful words out one by one, 
" Why — these — are — men: " I shudder'd: " and you know it.'* 
" O ask me nothing," I said : " And she knows too, 
And she conceals it." So my mother clutch'd 
The truth at once, but with no word from me; 
And now thus early risen she goes to inform 
The Princess: Lady Psyche will be crush'd; 
But you may yet be saved, and therefore fly: 
But heal me with your pardon ere you go." 



THE PRINCESS: A MEBLEl^. 347 

" What pardon, sweet Melissa, for a blush? " 
Said Cyril: "Pale one, blush again: than wear 
Those lilies, better blush our lives awa}^ 
Yet let us breathe for one hour more in Heaven." 
He added, " lest some classic Angel S2Deak 
In scorn of us, ' They mounted, Ganymedes, 
To tumble, Vulcans, on the second morn.' 
But I will melt this marble into wax 
To yield us farther furlough : " and he went. 

Melissa shook her doubtful curls, and thought 
He scarce would prosper. " Tell us," Florian ask'd, 
" Ho-w grew this feud betwixt the right and left." 
" O long ago," she said, " betwixt these two 
Division smoulders hidden: 'tis my mother, 
Too jealous, often fretful as the wind 
Pent in a crevice: much I bear with her: 
I never knew my father, but she says 
(God help her) she was wedded to a fool; 
And still she rail'd against the state of things. 
She had the care of Lady Ida's youth, 
And from the Queen's decease she brought her up. 
But when your sister came she won the heart 
Of Ida: they were still together, grew 
(For so they said themselves) inosculated; 
Consonant chords that shiver to one note; 
One mind in all things: yet my mother still 
Affirms your Psyche thieved her theories, 
And angled with them for her pupil's love: 
She calls her plagiarist; I know not wdiat: 
But I must go: I dare not tarry," and light, 
As flies the shadow of a bird, she fled. 

Then murmur'd Florian, gazing after her: 
" An open-hearted maiden, true and pure. 
If I could love, why this were she : how pretty 
Her blushing was, and how she blush'd again, 
As if to close with Cyril's random w^ish : 
Not like your Princess cramm'd with erring pride, 
Nor like poor Psyche whom she drags in tow." 

" The crane," I said, " may chatter of the crane, 
The dove may murmur of the dove, but I 
An eagle clang an eagle to the sphere. 



348 THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 

My princess, O my princess! true she errs, 

But in her own grand way; being herself 

Three times more noble than three score of men, 

She sees herself in every woman else. 

And so she wears her error like a crown 

To blind the truth and me: for her, and her, 

Hebes are they to hand ambrosia, mix 

The nectar; but — ah she — whene'er she moves 

The Samian Here rises and she speaks 

A Memnon smitten with the morning sun." 

So saying, from the court we paced, and gain'd 
The terrace rang'd along the Northern front, 
And leaning there on those balusters, high 
Above the empurpled champaign, drank the gale 
That blown about the foliage underneath. 
And sated with the innumerable rose. 
Beat balm upon our eyelids. 

Hither came 
Cyril, and yawning "O hard task," he cried: 
" No fighting shadows here ! I forced a way 
Thro' solid opposition crabb'd and gnarl'd. 
Better to clear prime forests, heave and thump 
A league of street in summer solstice down, 
Than hammer at this reverend gentlewoman. 
I knock'd and, bidden, enter'd; found her there 
At point to move, and settled in her .eyes 
The green malignant light of coming storm. 
Sir, I was courteous, every phrase well-oil'd, 
As man's could be: yet maiden-meek I pray'd 
Concealment: she demanded who we were. 
And why we came? I fabled nothing fair. 
But, your example pilot, told her all. 
Up went the hush'd amaze of hand and eye. 
But when I dwelt upon your old affiance. 
She answer'd sharply that I talk'd astray. 
I urg'd the fierce inscription on the gate. 
And our three lives. True — we had limed ourselves, 
With open eyes, and we must take the chance. 
But such extremes, I told her, well might harm 
The woman's cause. ' Not more than now,' she said. 
' So puddled as it is with favoritism.' 
I tried the mother's heart. Shame might befall 
Melissa, knowing, saying not she knew: 
Her answer was, ' Leave me to deal with that.' 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLET. ^49 



I spoke of war to come and many deaths, 

And she replied, her duty was to speak. 

And duty duty, clear of consequences. 

I grew discourag'd. Sir, but since I knew 

No rock so hard but that a little wave 

May beat admission in a thousand years, 

I recommenc'd : ' Decide not ere you pause 

I find you here but in the second place, 

Some say the third — the authentic foundress you. 

I offer boldly; we will seat you highest: 

Wink at our advent: help my prince to gain 

His rightful bride, and here I promise you 

Some palace in our land, where you shall reign 

The head and heart of all our fair she-world, 

And your great name flow on with broadening time 

Forever.' Well, she balanc'd this a little. 

And told me she would answer us to-day, 

Meantime be mute: thus much, nor more I gain'd." 

He ceasing, came a message from the Head. 
"That afternoon the Princess rode to take 
The dip of certain strata to the North. 
Would we go with her? we should find the land 
Worth seeing; and the river made a fall 
Out yonder;" then she pointed on to where 
A double hill ran up his furrowy forks 
Beyond the thick-leav'd platans of the vale. 

Agreed to this, the day fled on thro' all 
Its range of duties to the appointed hour. 
Then summon'd to the porch we went. She stood 
Among her maidens, higher by the head. 
Her back against a pillar, her foot on one 
Of those tame leopards. Kitttenlike he roli'd 
And paw'd about her sandal. I drew near: 
I gazed. On a sudden my strange seizure came 
Upon me, the weird vision of our house: 
The Princess Ida seem'd a hollow show, 
Her ga3'--furr'd cats a painted fantasy. 
Her college and her maidens empty masks, 
And I myself the shadow of a dream. 
For all things were and were not. Yet I felt 
My heart beat thick with passion and with awe; 
Then from my breast the involuntary sigh 



350 THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 



Brake, as she smote me with tb.e light of eyes 
That lent my knee desire to kneel, and shook 
My pulses, till to horse we got, and so 
Went forth in long retinue following up 
The river as it narrow'd to the hills. 

I rode beside her and to me she said : 
" O friend, we trust that you esteem'd us not 
Too harsh to your companion yestermorn ; 
Unwillingly we spake." " No — not to her," 
I answer'd, " but to one of whom we spake 
Your Highness might have seem'd the thing you say." 
" Again? " she cried, " are you ambassadresses 
From him to me? we give you, being strange, 
A license: speak, and let the topic die." 

I stammer'd that I knew him — could have wishVl — 
" Our king expects — was there no precontract? 
There is no truer-hearted — ah, you seem 
All he prefigur'd, and he could not see 
The bird of passage flying south but long'd 
To follow: surely, if your Highness keep 
Your purport, you will shock him ev'n to death, 
Or baser courses, children of despair." 

" Poor bo^'," she said, '' can he not read — no books? 
Quoit, tennis, ball — no games? nor deals in that 
Which men delight in, martial exercise? 
To nurse a blind ideal like a girl, 
Methinks he seems no better than a girl; 
As girls were once, as Ave ourself have been : 
We had our dreams; perhaps he mixt with them: 
We touch on our dead self, nor shun to do it, 
Being other — since we learnt our meaning here. 
To lift the woman's fall'n divinity. 
Upon an even pedestal with man." 

She paus'd, and added with a haughtier smile: 
" And as to precontracts, we move, my friend. 
At no man's beck, but know ourself and thee, 
O Vashti, noble Vashti! Summon'd out 
She kept her state, and left the drunken king 
To brawl at Shushan underneath the palms." 



THE PRIXCESS: A MEDLEY. ^ 351 

" Alas your Highness breathes full East," I said, 
" On that which leans to you. I know the Prince, 
I prize his truth : and then how vast a work 
To assail this gray pre-eminence of man! 
You grant me license; might I use it? think, 
Ere Jialf be done perchance your life may fail: 
Then comes the feebler heiress of your plan, 
And takes and ruins all ; and thus your pains 
May only make that footprint upon sand 
Which old recurring waves of prejudice 
Resmooth to nothing: might I dread that you, 
With only Fame for spouse and your great deeds 
For issue, yet may live in vain, and miss. 
Meanwhile, what every woman counts her due, 
Love, children, happiness."" 

And she exclaim'd, 
" Peace, vou voung savage of the Northern wild ! 
AVhat! tho' your Prince's love were like a God's, 
Have vye not made ourself the sacrifice? 
You are bold indeed: we are not talk'd to thus: 
Yet will ^ve say for children, would thev grew 
Like field-flowers everywhere! we like them well: 
But children die; and let me tell vou, girl, 
Howe'er ^^ou babble, great deeds cannot die; 
They with the sun and moon renew their light 
Forever, blessing those that look on them. 
Children — that men may pluck them from our hearts, 
Kill us with pity, break us with ourselves — 
O — children — there is nothing upon earth 
More miserable than she that has a son 
And sees him err : nor would we work for fame ; 
Tho' she perhaps might reap the applause of Great, 
Who learns the one pou sto whence after-hands 
May move the world, tho' she herself effect 
But little : wherefore up and act, nor shrink 
For fear our solid aim be dissipated 
By frail successors. Would, indeed, we had been. 
In lieu of many mortal files, a race 
Of giants living, each, a thousand 3^ears, 
That we might see our own work out, and watch 
The sandy footprint harden into stone." 

I answer'd nothing, doubtful in myself 
If that strange Poet-princess with her grand 



352 THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 

Imagj-inations mlg^ht at all be won. 

And she broke out interpreting my thoughts: 

" No doubt we seem a kind of monster to you; 
We are used to that: for women, up till this 
Cramp'd under vv^orse than South-sea-isle taboo, 
Dwarfs of the gynaeceum, fail so far 
In high desire, they know not, cannot guess 
How inuch their w^elfare is a passion to us 
If w^e could give them surer, quicker proof — 
O if our end were less achievable 
By slow approaches, than by single act 
Of immolation, any phase of death, 
We were as prompt to spring against the pikes, 
Or down the fiery gulf as talk of it, 
To compass our dear sisters' liberties." 

She bow'd as if to veil a noble tear; 
And up we came to where the river sloped 
To plunge in cataract, shattering on 'black blocks 
A breath of thunder. O'er it shook the woods. 
And danc'd the color, and, below, stuck out 
The bones of some vast bulk that lived and roar'd 
Before man was. She gazed awhile and said, 
" As these rude bones to us, are we to her 
That will be." " Dare we dream of that," I ask'd, 
" Which wrought us, as the workman and his work, 
That practice betters? " " How," she cried, " you love 
The metaphysics! read and earn our prize, 
A golden broach: beneath an emerald plane 
Sits Diotima, teaching him that died 
Of hemlock; our device; wa'ought to the life; 
She rapt upon her subject, he on her: 
For there are schools for all." " And yet," I said, 
" Methinks I have not found among them all 
One anatomic." " Nay, w^e thought of that," 
She answer'd, "but it pleased us not: in truth 
We shudder but to dream our maids should ape 
Those monstrous males that carve the living hound, 
And cram him with the fragments of the grave. 
Or in the dark dissolving human heart, 
And holy secrets of this microcosm. 
Dabbling a shameless hand with shameful jest, 
Encarnalize their spirits: yet we know 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLET. 353 

Knowledge is knowledge, and this matter hangs : 

Howbeit ourself, foreseeing casualty, 

Nor willing men should come among us, learnt, 

For many weary moons before ^ve came. 

This craft of healing. Were you sick, ourself 

Would tend upon you. To your question now, 

Which touches on the workman and his work. 

Let there be light and there was light: 'tis so: 

For was, and is, and will be, are but is; 

And all creation is one act at once. 

The birth of light: but we that are not all. 

As parts, can see but parts, now this, now that. 

And live, perforce, from thought to thought, and make 

One act a phantom of succession : thus 

Our weakness somehow shapes the shadow, Time; 

But in the shadow we will work, and mould 

The woman to the fuller day." 

She spake 
With kindled eyes; we rode a league beyond, 
And, o'er a bridge of pinewood crossing, came 
On flowery levels underneath the crag, 
Full of all beauty. " O how sweet," I said, 
(For I was half-oblivious of my mask,) 
" To linger here with one that loved us." " Yea," 
She answer'd, " or \vith fair philosophies 

That lift the fancy ; for indeed these fields * 

Are lovely, lovelier not the Elysian lawns. 
Where paced the Demigods of old, and saw 
The soft white vapor streak the crowned towers 
Built to the Sun :" then, turning to her maids, 
" Pitch our pavilion here upon the sward ; 
Lay out the viands." At the word, they rais'd 
A tent of satin, elaborately wrought 
With fair Corinna's triumph; here she stood, 
Engirt with many a florid maiden-cheek. 
The w^oman-conqueror: woman conquer'd tliere 
The bearded Victor of ten-thousand h\'mns, 
And all the men mourned at his side: but wc 
Set forth to climb; then, climbing, Cyril kept 
With Psyche, with Melissa Florian, I 
With mine affianc'd. Many a little hand 
Glanc'd like a touch of sunshine on the rocks. 
Many a light foot shone like a jew^el set 
In the dark crag: and then we turn'd, we wound 
About the cliff's, the copses, out and in, 
23 



y354 



THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 



Hammering and clinking, chattering stonv names 
Of shale and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff. 
Amygdaloid nnd trachyte, till the sun 
Grew broader to^vard his death and fell, and all 
The rosv heio-hts came out above the lawns. 




The splendor falls on castle walls 

And snowy summits old in story; 
The long light shakes across the lakes 
And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 



O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, 

And thinner, clearer, farther going! 
O sweet and far from cliff and scar 

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! 
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying; 
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDEE2 



355 



O love, thev die in yon rich sky, 

They faint on hill or field or river : 
Our echoes roll from soul to soul. 
And grow forever and forever. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying^ 




IV. 



" There sinks the nebulous star we call the sun. 
If that hypothesis of theirs he sound," 
Said Ida; " let us down and rest:" and we 
Down from the lean and wrinkled precipices, 
By every coppice-feather'd chasm and cleft, 
Dropt thro' the ambrosial gloom to ^vhere below 

No bisrsrer than a orlow-worm shone the tent 
Lamp-lit from the inner. Once she lean'd on me, 
Descending: once or twice she lent her hand, 
And blissful palpitations in the blood, 
Stirring a sudden transport rose and fell. 



But when we planted level feet, and dipt 
Beneath the satin dome and enter'd in. 
There leaning deep in broider'd down we sank. 
Our elbows : on a tripod in the midst 
A fragrant flame rose, and before us glow'd 
Fruit, blossom, viand, amber wine, and gold. 



356 THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 

Then she, " Let some one sing to us : lightlier move 
The minutes fledg'd with music:" and a maid, 
Of those beside her, smote her harp, and sang : 



" Tears, idle tears, I know not what thev mean, 
Tears from the depth of some divine despair 
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, 
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, 
And thinking of the days that are no more. 

" Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail. 
That brings our friends up from the under world, 
Sad as the last which reddens over one 
That sinks with all we love below the verge ; 
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 

" Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds 
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; 
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 

" Dear as remember'd kisses after death. 
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd 
On lips that are for others: deep as love. 
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; 
O Death in Life, the days that are no more." 



She ended with such passion that the tear. 
She sang of, shook and fell, an erring pearl 
Lost in her bosom: but with some disdain 
Answer'd the Princess: "If indeed there haunt 
About the moulder'd lodges of the Past 
So sweet a voice and vague, fatal to men, 
Well needs it we should cram our ears v^^ith wool 
And so pace by : but thine are fancies hatch'd 
In silken-folded idleness; nor is it 
Wiser to weep a true occasion lost. 
But trim our sails, and let old bygones be, 
While down the streams that float us each and all 
To the issue, goes, like glittering bergs of ice. 
Throne after throne, and molten on the waste 
Becomes a cloud: for all things serve their time 
ToAvard that great year of equal mights and rights, 
Nor would I tight with iron laws, in the end 
Found golden: let the past be past; let be 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 357 

Their cancell'd Babels: tho' the rough kex break 
The Rtarr'd mosaic, and the wild goat hang 
Upon the shaft, and the wild fig-tree split 
Their monstrous idols, care not while v\^e hear 
A trumpet in the distance pealing news 
Of better, and Hoj^e, a poising eagle, burns 
Above the unrisen morrow:" then to me, 
" Know you no song of your own land?" she said, 
'' Not such as moans about the retrospect. 
But deals with the other distance and the hues 
Of promise ; not a death's-head at the wine." 



Then I remember'd one myself had made. 
What time I watch'd the swallow winging south 
From mine own land, part made long since, and part 
Now while I sang, and maidenlike as far 
As 1 could ape their treble, did I sing. 



" O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, 
Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, 
And tell her, tell her what I tell to thee. 



" O tell her. Swallow, thou that knowest each. 
That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, 
And dark and true and tender is the North. 



" O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow and light 
Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill. 
And cheep and twitter twenty million loves. 



" O were I thou that she might take me in, 
And lay me on her bosom, and her heart 
Would rock the snowy cradle till I died. 



" Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, 
Delaying as the tender ash delays 
To clothe herself, when all the woods are green.'' 



" O tell her. Swallow, that thy brood is flown; 
Say to her, I do but wanton in the South 
But in the North long since my nest is made. 



" O tell her, brief is life, but love is long. 
And brief the sun of summer in the North, 
And brief the moon of beauty in the South. 



358 THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 



" O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, 
Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, 
And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee." 



I ceased, and all the ladies, each at each, 
Like the Ithacensiaii suitors in old time 
Stared with great eyes, and laugh'd with alien lips. 
And knew not what they meant; for still my voice 
Rang false: but smiling, "Not for thee," she said, 
" O Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan 
Shall burst her veil: marsh-divers, rather, maid. 
Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow-crake 
Grate her harsh kindred in the grass: and this 
A mere love-poem ! O for such, my friend. 
We hold them slight: they mind us of the time 
When we made bricks in Egypt. Knaves are men, 
That lute and flute fantastic tenderness. 
And dress the victim to the offering up, 
And paint the gates of Hell with Paradise, 
And plav the slave to gaiii the tyranny. 
Poor soul! I had a maid of honor once; 
She wept her true eyes blind for such a one, 
A roffue of canzonets and serenades. 

o 

I loved her. Peace be with her. She is dead. 

So they blaspheme the Muse! but great is song 

Used to great ends: ourself have often tried 

Valkvrian hymns, or into rhythm have dash'd 

The passion of the prophetess; for song 

Is duer unto freedom, force and growth 

Of spirit, than to junketing and love. 

Love is it? Would this same mock-love, and this 

Mock-Hymen were laid up like winter bats. 

Till all men grew to rate us at our worth. 

Not vassals to be beat, nor pretty babes 

To be dandled, no, but living v^^ills, and sphered 

Whole in ourselves and owed to none. Enough! 

But now to leaven play with profit, you. 

Know you no song, the true growth of your soil. 

That gives the manners of your countrywomen ? " 

She spoke and turn'd her sumptuous head with eyes 
Of shining expectation fixt on mine. 
Then while I dragg'd my brains for such a song, 
Cyril, with whom the bell-mouth'd flask had wrought^ 
Or master'd by the sense of sport, began 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 359 



To troll a careless, careless tavern-catch 
Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences 
Unmeet for ladies. Florian nodded at hirn, 
I frowning; Psyche flush'd and wann'd and shook; 
The lilylike Melissa droop'd her brows; 
"Forbear," the Princess cried; " Forbear, Sir," I ; 
And heated thro' and thro' with wrath and love, 
I smote him on the breast; he started up; 
Tp.crc rose a shriek as of a city sack'd; 
Melissa clamor'd, " Flee the death;" " To horse," 
Said Ida; "home! to horse!" and fled, as flies 
A troop of snowy doves athwart the dusk, 
When some one batters at the dovecote-doors. 
Disorderly the women. 

Alone I stood 
With Florian, cursing Cyril, vex'd at heart, 
In the pavilion: there like parting hopes 
I heard them passing from me: hoof by hoof. 
And every hoof a knell to my desires, 
Clang'd on the bridge; and then another shriek, 
"The Head, the Head, the Princess, O the Head! " 
For blind with rage she miss'd the j^lank, and rolPd 
In the river. Out I sprang from glow to gloom; 
There whirl'd her white robe like a blossom 'd brand; 
Rapt to the horrible fall ; a glance I gave. 
No more, but \voman-vested as I was 
Plung'd; and the flood drew; yet I caught her; then 
Oaring one arm, and bearing in my left 
The weight of all the hopes of half the world 
Strove to buflfet to land in vain. A tree 
Was half-disrooted from his place and stoop'd 
To drench his dark locks in the gurgling wave 
Mid-channel. Right on this we drove and caught, 
And grasping down the boughs I gain'd the shore. 



There stood her maidens glimmeringlv group'd 
In the hollow bank. One reaching forward drew 
My burthen from mine arms; they cried, " She lives!*' 
They bore her back into the tent; but I, 
So much a kind of shame within me wrought, 
Not yet endur'd to meet her opening eyes. 
Nor found my friends; but push'd alone on foot 
(For since her horse was lost I left her mine) 
Across the woods, and less from Indian craft 



360 l^HE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 

Than beelike instinct hive ward, found at length 
The garden portals. Two great statues, Art 
And Science, Caryatids, lifted up 
A weight of emblem, and betwixt were \alves 
Of open-work in which the hunter rued 
His rash intrusion, manlike, but his brows 
Had sprouted, and the branches thereupon 
Spread out at top, and grimly spiked the gates. 

A little space was left between the horns. 
Thro' which I clamber'd o'er at top with pain, 
Dropt on the sward, and up the linden walks. 
And, tost on thoughts that chang'd from hue to hue, 
Now poring on the glow-worm, now the star, 
I paced the terrace till the Bear had wheel'd 
Thro' a great arc his seven siov^ suns. 

A step 
Of lightest echo, then a loftier form 
Than female, moving thro' the uncertain gloom, 
Disturb'd me with the doubt " if this were she," 
But it was Florian. '• Hist, O hist," he said, 
*' They seek us: out so late is out of rules. 
Moreover ' Seize the strangers ' is tlie cr\ . 
How came you here?" I told him: " I," said he, 
" Last of the train, a moral leper, I 
To w^hom none spake, half-sick at heart, return'd. 
Arriving all confus'd among the rest 
With hooded brows I crept into the hail, 
And, couch'd behind a Judith, underneath 
The head of Holofernes peep'd and saw, 
Girl after girl ^vas call'd to trial : each 
Disclaim'd all knowledge of us; last of all, 
Melissa : trust me, Sir, I pitied her. 
She, question'd if she knew us men, at first 
Was silent; closer prest, denied it not: 
And then, demanded if her mother knew. 
Or Psyche, she affinn'd not, or denied: 
From whence the Royal mind, familiar with her, 
Easily gather'd either guilt. She sent 
For Psyche, but she was not there ; she call'd 
For Psyche's child to cast it from the doors; 
She sent for Blanche to accuse her face to face; 
And I slipt out: but whither will you now.'* 
And where are Ps3^che, Cyril? both are fled: 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 361 

What, if together? that were not so \vell. 
Would rather we had never come! I dread 
His wildness, and the chances of the dark." 

" And yet," I said, " you wrong him more than I 

That struck him : tliis is proper to the clown, 

Tho' smock'd, or furr'd and purpled, still the clown, 

To harm the thing that trusts him, and to shame 

That which he says he loves: for Cyril, howe'er 

He deal in frolic, as to-night — the song 

Might have been worse and sinn'd in grosser lips 

Beyond all pardon — as it is, I hold 

These flashes on the surface are not he. 

He has a solid base of temperament: 

But as the water-lily starts and slides 

Upon the level in little puffs of wind, 

Tho' anchor'd to the bottom, such is he." 

Scarce had I ceas'd when from a tamarisk near 
Two Proctors leapt upon us, crying, " Names." 
He, standing still, was clutch'd; but I began 
To thrid the musky-circled mazes, wind 
And double in and out the boles, and race 
By all the fountains: fleet I was of foot: 
Before me shower'd the rose in flakes; behind 
I heard the pufl"'d pursuer; at mine ear 
Bubbled the nightingale and heeded not, 
And secret laughter tickled all my soul. 
At last I hook'd my ankle in a vine, 
That claspt the feet of a Mnemosyne, 
And falling on my face was caught and known. 

They haled us to the Princess where she sat 
High in the hall: above her droop'd a lamp. 
And made the single jewel on her brow 
Burn like the mystic fire on a mast-head. 
Prophet of storm: a hand-maid on each side 
Bow'd toward her, combing out her long black hair 
Damp from the river; and close behind her stood 
Eight daughters of the plough, stronger than men, 
Huge women blowz'd with health, and wind, and rain, 
And labor. Each was like a Druid rock; 
Or like a spire of land that stands apart 
Cleft from the main, and wail'd about with mews. 



^ >2 THE PRINCESS: A MEDLET. 



Then, as we came, the crowd dividing" ciove 
An advent to the throne; and therebeside; 
Half-naked, as if caught at once from bed 
And tum'oled o\\ the purple footcloth, la\- 
The lily-shining ch.ld; and on the left, 
Bovv'd on her palms and folded up from wrong, 
Her round white shouldei' shaken with !ier sobs, 
Melissa knelt; but Lady Blanche erect 
Stood up and spake, an affluent orator, 

"It was not thus, O Princess, in old days: 
YoLi prized my counsel, lived upon my lips: 
I led you then to all tlie Castalies; 
I fed you with the milk of ever}^ Muse; 
I loved you like this kneeler, and you me 
Your second mother: those were gracious times. 
Then came vour new friend: you began to change — 
I saw it and griev'd — to slacken and to cool; 
Till taken with her seeming openness 
You turn'd your warmer currents all to her. 
To me you froze: this was my meed for ;dl. 
Yet I bore up in part from ancient love, 
And partly that I hoped to win you back. 
And partly conscious of my own deserts. 
And partly that you were my civil head. 
And chiefly you were born for something great, 
In which I might your fellow-worker be, 
When time should serve; and thus a noble scheme 
Grew up from seed ^ve two long since had sown; 
In us true growth, in her a Jonah's gourd. 
Up in one night and due to sudden sun : 
We took this palace; but even from the first 
You stood in your own light and darken'd mine. 
What student came but that you planed her path 
To Lady Psyche, younger, not so wise, 
A foreigner, and I j'our countrywoman, 
I your old friend and tried, she new in all? 
But still her lists were swell'd and mine were lean; 
Yet I bore up in hope she would be known: 
Tiien came these wolves: they knjw her: they endur'd^ 
Long-closeted with her the j^ester-morn. 
To tell her what they were, and she to hear: 
And me none told : not less to an e\'e like mine, 
A lidless watcher of the public weal. 
Last night, their mask was patent, and my foot 



THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 363 

Was to you: but I thou^^ht again: I fear'd 

To meet a cold ' We thank you, we shall hear of it 

From Lady Psyche: ' you had gone to her, 

She told, perforce; and winning easy grace, 

No doubt, for slight delay, remain'd among us 

In our young nursery still unknown, the stem 

Less grain than touchwood, while my honest heat 

Were all miscounted as malignant haste 

To push my rival out of place and pov^er. 

But public use requir'd she should be known ; 

And since my oath was ta'en for public use, 

I broke the letter of it to keep the sense. 

I spoke not then at first, but watch'd them well, 

Saw that they kept apart, no mischief done; 

And yet this day (tho' you should hate me for it) 

I came to tell you: found that you had gone, 

Ridd'n to the liills, she likewise: now, I thought, 

That sureh' she will speak; if not, then I: 

Did she? These monsters blazon'd what they were, 

According to the coarseness of their kind. 

For thus I hear; and known at last (my work) 

And full of cowardice and guilty shame, 

I grant in her some sense of shame, she fliies; 

And I remain on whom to wreak your rage, 

I, that have lent my life to build up yours, 

I, that have wasted here health, wealth, and time, 

And talents, I — you know it — I will not boast: 

Dismiss me, and I prophesy your plan, 

Divorc'd from my experience, will be chaff 

For every gust of chance, and men will say 

We did not know the real light, but chased 

The wisp that flickers where no foot can tread." 

She ceased: the Princess answer'd coldly " Good: 
Your oath is broken: we dismiss you: go. 
For this lost lamb (she pointed to the child) 
Our mind is changed: we take it to ourself." 

Thereat the Lady stretchM a vulture throat. 
And shot from crooked lips a haggard smile. 
" The plan was mine. I built the nest," she said, 
" To hatch the cuckoo. Rise ! " and stoop'd to updra^ 
Melissa: she, half on her mother propt. 
Half drooping from her, turn'd her face, and cast 



364 THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 

A liquid look on Ida, full of prayer, 

Which melted Florian's fancy as she hung, 

A Nibbean daughter, one arm out. 

Appealing to the bolts of Heaven; and while 

We gazed upon her came a little stir 

About the doors, and on a sudden rush'd 

Among us, out of breath, as one pursu'd, 

A woman -post in flying raiment. Fear 

Star'd in her eyes, and challv'd her face, and wing'd 

Her transit to the throne, whereby she fell 

Delivering seal'd dispatches which the Head 

Took half-amaz'd, and in her Hon's mood 

Tore open, silent we with blind surmise 

Regarding, while she read, till over brow 

And cheek and bosom brake the wrathful bloom 

As of some fire against a stormy cloud. 

When the wild peasant rights himself, the rick 

Flames, and his anger reddens in the heavens: 

For anger most it seem'd, while now her breast, 

Beaten with some great passion at her heart, 

Palpitated, her hand shook, and we heard 

In the dead hush the papers that she held 

Rustle: at once the lost lamb at her feet 

Sent out a bitter bleating for its dam ; 

The plaintive cry jarr'd on her ire ; she crush'd 

The scrolls together, made a sudden turn 

As if to speak, but, utterance failing her, 

She whirl'd them on to me, as who should say, 

" Read," and I read — two letters — one her sire's. 

" Fair daughter, -when ^ve sent the Prince your way 
We knew not your ungracious laws, which learnt, 
We, conscious of what temper you are built, 
Came all in haste to hinder wrong, but fell 
Into his father's hands, who has this night, 
, You lying close upon his territory, 

Slipt round and in the dark in\'ested you. 
And here he keeps me hostage for his son." 

The second was my father's, running thus: 
"You have onr son: touch not a hair of his head: 
Render him up unscath'd : give him your hand: 
Cleave to 3'our contract: tho' indeed we hear 
You hold the woman is the better man: 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 365- 

A rampant heresy, such as if it spread 

Would make all women kick against their lords 

Thro' all the world, and which might well deserve 

That we this night should pluck your palace down; 

And we will do it, unless you send us back 

Our son, on the instant, whole." 

So far I read; 
And then stood up and spoke impetuously. 

" O, not to pry and peer on your reserve, 
But led by golden wishes, and a hope 
The child of regal compact, did I break 
Your precinct; not a scorner of your sex 
But venerator, zealous it should be 
All that it might be; hear me, for I bear, 
Tho' man, yet human, whatso'er your wrongs. 
From the flaxen curl to the gray lock a life 
Less mine than yours: my nurse would tell me of you; 
I babbled for you, as babies for the moon, 
Vague brightness; when a boy, you stoop'd to me 
From all high places, lived in all fair lights. 
Came in long breezes rapt from inmost south 
And blown to inmost north; at eve and dawn 
With Ida, Ida, Ida, rang the woods ; 
The leader wild-swan in among the stars 
Would clang it, and lapt in wreaths of glow-worm light 
The mellow breaker murmur'd Ida. Now, 
Because I would have reach'd you, had you been 
Sphered up with Cassiopeia, or the enthron'd 
Peresphone in Hades, now at length. 
Those winters of abeyance all worn out, 
A man I came to see you: but, indeed, 
Not in this frequence can I lend full tongue, 
O noble Ida, to those thoughts that wait 
On you, their centre: let me say but this, 
That many a famous man and v/oman, town 
And landskip, have I heard of, after seen 
The dwarfs of pres age; tho' when known, there grew 
Another kind of beauty in detail 
Made them worth knowing; but in you I found 
My boyish dream involv'd and dazzled down 
And master'd, while that after-beauty makes 
Such head from act to act, from hour to hour, . 
Within me, that except you slay me here. 
According to your bitter statute-book. 



366 THE PRINCESS: A MEDLET. 

I cannot cease t(j follow you, as they say 

The seal does music; who desire you more 

Than growing boys their manhood: dying lips, 

With many thousand matters left to do, 

The breath of life; oh! more than poor men wealth, 

Than sick men health, — yours, yours, not mine, — but half 

Without you, with you, whole; and of those lialves 

You worthiest: and howe'er 3^011 bloclv and bar 

Your heart with system out from mine, I hold 

That it becomes no man to niu'se despair, 

But in the teeth of clench'd antagonisms 

To follow up the worthiest till he die: 

Yet that I came not all unauthoriz'd 

Behold your father's letter." 

On one knee 
Kneeling, I gave it, which she caught, and dash'd 
Unopen'd at her feet: a tide of fierce 
Invective seem'd to wait behind her lips, 
As ^vaits a river level with the dam 
Ready to burst and flood the world witli foam; 
And so she would have spoken, but there rose 
A hubbub in the court of half the maids 
Gather'd together: from the illumin'd hall 
Long lanes of splendor slanted o'er a press 
Of snowy shoulders, thick as herded ewes, 
And rainbow robes, and gems and gem-like eyes. 
And gold and golden heads; they to and fi'o 
Fluctuated, as flo\vers in storm, some red, some pale, 
All open-mouth'd, all gazing to the light, 
Some crying there was an army in the land. 
And some that men were in the verv walls. 
And some they cared not; till a clamor grevv^ 
As of a new-world Babel, woman-built. 
And worse confounded : high above them stood 
The placid marble Muses, looking peace. 

Not peace she look'd, the Head: but rising up 
Robed in the long night of her deep hair, so 
To the open window moved, remainnig there 
Fixt like a beacon-tower above the Avavcs 
Of tempest, when the crimson-rolling eye 
Glares ruin, and the wild birds on the light 
Dash themselves dead. She stretch'd her arms and cali'd 
Across the tumult and the tumult fell. 



THE FRIXCESS: A MED LEI'. 367 

" What fear ye brawlers? am not I your Head? 
On me, me, me, the storm first breaks: / dare 
All these male thunderbolts: what is it ye fear? 
Peace! there are those to avencre us and they come: 
If not, — myself were like enough, O girls, 
To unfurl the maiden banner of our rights, 
And clad in iron burst the ranks of war. 
Or, falling, prolomartyr of our cause. 
Die: yet I blame ye not so much for fear; 
Six thousand years of fear have made ye that 
From ^vhich I would redeem ye: but for those 
That stir this hubbub — you and you — I know 
Vour faces there in the crowd — to-morrow morn 
We hold a great convention: then shall they 
That love their voices more than duty, learn 
With whom they deal, dismiss'd in shame to live 
No wiser than their mothers, household stuff. 
Live chattels, mincers of each other's fame, 
Full of weak poison, turnspits for the clown, 
The drunkard's football, laughing-stocks of Time, 
Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels, 
But fit to fiaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum. 
To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour, 
Forever slaves at home and fools abroad." 



She, ending, waved her hands: thereat the crowd 
Muttering dissolv'd : then w^ith a smile, that look'd 
A stroke of cruel sunshine on the cliff. 
When all the glens are drown'd in azure gloom 
Of thunder-shower, she floated to us and said: 

" You have done well and like a gentleman, 
And like a prince; you have our thanks for all: 
And you look w^eil too in your woman's dress: 
Well have you done and like a gentleman. 
You saved our life: we owe you bitter thanks: 
Better have died and spilt our bones in the flood — 
Then men had said — but now — What hinders me 
To take such bloody vengeance on vou both ? — 
Yet since our father — Wasps in our good hive, 
You would be quenchers of the light to be. 
Barbarians, grosser than your native bears — 
O would I had his sceptre for one hour I 
You that have dared to break our bound, and o-ulFd 



368 THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 

Our servants, wrong'd and lied and thwarted us — 
/ wed with thee ! I bound by precontract 
Your bride, 3'our bondslave ! not tho' all the gold 
That veins the world were pack'd to make your crown, 
And every spoken tongue should lord you. Sir, 
Your falsehood and yourself are hateful to us: 
I trample on your offers and on you; 
Begone: we will not look upon 3-ou more. 
Here, push them out at gates." 

In wrath she spake. 
Then those eight mighty daughters of the plough 
Bent their broad faces toward us and address'd 
Their motion : twice I sought to plead my cause, 
But on my shoulder hung their heavy hands. 
The weight of destiny : so from her face 
They push'd us, down the steps, and thro' the court, 
And with grim laughter thrust us out at gates. 

We cross'd the street and gain'd a petty mound 
Beyond it, whence we saw the lights and heard 
The voices murmuring. While I listen'd, came 
On a sudden the weird seizure and the doubt: 
I seem'd to move among a world of ghosts: 
The Princess with her monstrous woman-guard, 
The jest and earnest working side by side, 
The cataract and the tumult and the kings 
Were shadows; and the long fantastic night 
With all its doings had and had not been, 
And all things were and were not. 

This went by 
As strangely as it came, and on my spirits 
Settled a gentle cloud of melancholy; 
Not long; I shook it off; for spite of doubts 
And sudden ghostly shadowings I was one 
To whom the touch of all mischance but came 
As night to him that sitting on a hill 
Sees the midsummer midnight, Norway sun 
Set into sunrise: then we moved away. 



Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums, 
That beat to battle where he stands ; 

Thy face across his fancy comes, 
And gives the battle to his hands: 

A moment, while the trumpets blow, 



34 



THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 369 



He sees his brood about thy knee; 
The next, like fire he meets the foe, 

And strikes him dead for thine and thee. 



So Lilia sang: we thought her half-possess'd, 
She struck such warbling fury thro' the words; 
And, after feigning pique at what she call'd 
The raillery, or grotesque, or false sublime — 
Like one that wishes at a dance to change 
The music — clapt her hands and cried for war, * 
Or some grand fight to kill and make an end : 
And he that next inherited the tale 
Half-turning to the broken statue said : 
" Sir Ralph has got your colors : if I prove 
Your knight, and fight your battle, what for me?" 
It chanc'd, her empty glove upon the tomb 
Lay by her like a model of her hand. 
She took it and she flung it. " Fight," she said, 
" And make us all we would be, great and good." 
He knightlike in his cap instead of casque, 
A cap of Tyrol borrow'd from the hall, 
Arrang'd the favor, and assum'd the Prince. 



V. 



Now, scarce three paces measur'd from the mound, 
We stumbled on a stationary voice. 

And " Stand, who goes? " " Two from the palace," L 
" The second two: they wait," he said, "pass on; 
His Highness wakes ": and one, that clash'd in arms, 
By glimmering lanes the walls of canvas, led 
Threading the soldier-city, till we heard 
The drowsy folds of our great ensign shake 
From blazon'd lions o'er the imperial tent 
Whispers of war. 

Entering, the sudden light 
Dazed me half-blind : I stood and seem'd to hear, 
As in a poplar grove when a light wind wakes 
A lisping of the innumerous leaf and dies, 
Each hissing in his neighbor's ear; and then 
A strangled titter, out of which there brake 
On all sides, clamoring etiquette to death, 
Unmeasur'd mirth; while now the two old kings 
Began to wag their baldness up and down, 
The fresh young captains flash'd their glittering teeth, 



370 THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 



The huge bush-bearded Barons heaved and blew, 
And slain with laughter roll'd the gilded Squire. 

At length my Sire, his rough cheek w^et with tear 
Panted from weary sides, " King, you are free! 
We did but keep you surety for our son, 
If this be he, — or a draggled mawkin, thou. 
That tends her bristled grunters in the sludge: " 
For I was drench'd with ooze, and torn with briers, 
More crumpled than a poppy from the sheath. 
And ail one rag, disprinc'd from head to heel. 
Then some one sent beneath his vaulted palm 
A whisper'd jest to some one near him '• Look, 
He has been among his shadows." " Satan take 
The old women and their shadows! (thus the King 
Roar'd) make yourself a man to fight with men. 
Go: Cyril told us all." 

As boys that slink 
From ferule and the trespass-chiding eye, 
Awa}^ we stole, and transient in a trice 
From what was left of faded woman slough 
To sheathing splendors and the golden scale 
Of harness, issued in the sun, that now 
Leapt from the dewy shoulders of the Earth, 
And hit the northern hills. 

Here Cyril met us, 
A little shy at first, but by and by 
We twain, with mutual pardon a'sk'd and gi\en 
For stroke and song, resolder'd peace, whereon 
Follow'd his tale. Amaz'd he fled away 
Thro' the dark land, and later in the night 
Had come on Psyche v^eeping: " then we fell 
Into your father's hand and there she lies, 
But will not speak, nor stir." 

He show'd a tent 
A stone-shot off: Ave enter'd in, and there 
Among piled arms and rough accoutrements. 
Pitiful sight, wrapt in a soldier's cloak. 
Like some sweet sculpture draped from head to foot, 
And push'd by rude hands from its pedestal, 
All her fair length upon the ground she lay: 
And at her head a follower of the camp, 
A charr'd and wrinkled piece of womanhood, 
Sat watching like a watcher by the dead. 



THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 371 

Then Florian knelt, and "Come " he whisper'd to her, 
" Lift up your head, sweet sister: He not thus 
What have you done but right? you could not slay 
Me, nor your prince: look up: be comforted: 
S^veet is it to have done the thing one ought, 
When fall'n in darker ways." And likewise I; 
"Be comforted: have I not lost her too, 
In whose least act abides the nameless charm 
That none has else for me? " She heard, she moved, 
She moan'd, a folded voice; and up she sat. 
And rais'd the cloak from brows as pale and smooth 
As those that mourn half-shrouded over death 
In deathless marble. " Her," she said, " my friend — 
Parted from her — betray'd her cause and mine — 
Where shall I breathe? why kept ye not your faith? 
O base and bad! what comfort? none for me! " 
To whom remorseful Cyril, " Yet I pray 
Take comfort: live, dear lady, for your child! " 
At which she lifted up her voice and cried : 

" Ah me, my babe, my blossom, ah, my child, 
Mv one sweet child, \vhom I shall see no more! 
For now will cruel Ida keep her back; 
And either she w^ill die from want of care. 
Or sicken ^vith ill-usage, when they sav 
The child is hers — for "every little fault, 
The child is hers; and they will beat my girl 
Remembering her mother: O my flower! 
Or they will take her, they will make her hard, 
And she will pass me by in after-life 
With some cold reverence worse than w^ere she dead, 
111 mother that I was to leave her there. 
To lag behind, scared by the cry they made, 
The horror of the shame among them all: 
But I will go and sit beside the doors. 
And make a wild petition night and da^ , 
Until they hate to hear me like a wand 
Wailing forever, till they open to me, 
And lay my little blossom at m}^ feet. 
My babe, my sweet Aglaia, my one child : 
And I will take her up and go my wav, 
And satisfy my soul with kissing her: / 

Ah! what might that man not deserve of me. 
Who gave me back my child? " " Be comforted," 



372 THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 

■ Said Cyril, " you shall have it," but again 

She veil'd her brows, and prone she sank, and so 
Like tender things that being caught feign death, 
Spoke not, nor stirr'd. 

By this a murmur ran 
Thro' all the camp and inward raced the scouts 
With rumor of Prince Arac hard at hand. 
We left her by the woman, and without 
Found the gray kings at parle: and " Look you," cried 
My father, " that our compact be fulfill'd : 
You have spoilt this child; she laughs at 3'ou and man: 
She wrongs herself, her sex, and me, and him : 
But red-faced war has rods of steel and fire; 
She yields, or war." 

Then Gama turn'd to me: 
" We fear, indeed, you spent a stormy time 
With our strange girl : and yet they say that still 
You love her. Give us, then, your mind at large; 
How say you, war or not? " 

" Not war, if possible, 

king," I said, " lest from the abuse of war, 
The desecrated shrine, the trampled year, 

The smouldering homestead, and the household flower 

Torn from the lintel — all the common wrong — 

A smoke go up thro' which I loom to her 

Three times a monster: now" she lightens scorn 

At him that mars her plan, but then would hate 

(And ever}' voice she talk'd with ratify it. 

And every face she look'd on justify it) 

The general foe. More soluble is this knot, 

By gentleness than war. I want her love. 

What were I nig her this altho' we dash'd 

Your cities into shards with catapults, 

She would not love; — or brought her chain'd, a slave. 

The lifting of whose eyelash is my lord. 

Not ever would she love; but brooding turn 

The book of scorn till all my flitting chance 

Were caught within the record of her wrongs. 

And crush'd to death; and rather, Sire, than this 

1 would the old God of ^var himself were dead. 
Forgotten, rusting on his iron hills, 

Rotting on some wild shore with ribs of wreck, 
Or like an old-world mammoth bulk'd in ice. 
Not to be molten out." 



I 



THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 373 

And roughly spake 
My father, " Tut, you know them not, the girls. 
Boy, when I hear you prate 1 almost think 
That idiot legend credible. Look you, Sir! 
Man is the hunter; woman is his game: 
The sleek and shining creatures of the chase, 
We hunt them for the beauty of their skins; 
They love us for it, and we ride them down. 
Wheedling and siding with them! Out! for shame! 
Boy, there's no rose that's half so dear to them 
As he that does the thing they dare not do. 
Breathing and sounding beauteous battle, comes 
W^ith the air of the trumpet round him, and leaps in 
Among the women, snares them by the score 
Flatter'd and fluster'd, wins, though dash'd with death 
He reddens \vhat he kisses: thus I won 
Your mother, a good mother, a good wife. 
Worth winning; but this firebrand — gentleness 
To such as her! if Cyril spake her true, 
To catch a dragon in a cherry net, 
To trip a tiger with a gossamer. 
Were wisdom to it." 

" Yea, but Sire," 1 cried, 
" Wild natures need wuse curbs. The soldier? No; 
What dares not Ida do that she should prize 
The soldier? I beheld her, when she rose 
The yester-night, and storming in extremes 
Stood for her cause, and flung defiance down 
Gagelike to man, and had not shunn'd the death, 
No, not the soldier's : yet I hold her, king. 
True woman: but you clash them all in one. 
That have as many differences as we. 
The violet varies from the lily as far 
As oak from elm : one loves the soldier, one 
The silken priest of peace, one this, one that. 
And some unworthily; their sinless faith, 
A maiden moon that sparkles on a st}^. 
Glorifying clown and satyr; whence they need 
More breadth of culture: is not Ida right? 
The}^ worth it? truer to the law within? 
Severer in tlie logic of a life? 
Twice as magnetic to sweet influences 
Of earth and heaven? and she of whom you speak, 
M}^ mother, looks as whole as some serene 
Creation minted in the gfolden moods 



374 THE PRIX CESS: A MEDLEl^. 

Of sovereign artists; not a thought, a touch, 
But pure as lines of green that streak the white 
Of the first snowdrop's inner leaves; I say. 
Not like the piebald miscellany, man, 
Bursts of great heart and slips in sensual mire, 
But whole and one: but take them all-in-all, 
Were we ourselves but half as good, as kind, 
As truthful, much as Ida claims as right 
Had ne'er been mooted, but as frankly tlieirs 
As dues of Nature. To our point: not war: 
Lest I lose all." 

" Nay, nay, you spake but sense, 
Said Gama. " We remember love ourselves 
In our sweet youth; we did not rate him then 
This red-hot iron to be shaped ^vith blows. 
You talk almost like Ida: she can talk; 
And there is something in it as you say ; 
But you talk kindlier; we esteem you for it. — 
He seems a gracious and a gallant Prince, 
I would he had our daughter; for the rest. 
Our own detention, why the causes weigh'd, 
Fatherly fears — you used us courteously — 
We would do much to gratify your Prince — 
We pardon it ; and for your ingress here 
Upon the skirt and fringe of our fair land, 
You did but come as goblins in the night, * 
Nor in the furrow broke the ploughman's head. 
Nor burnt the orrans^e, nor buss'd the milkino-.maid, 
Nor robb'd the farmer of his bow^l of cream : 
But let our Prince (our royal word upon it, 
He comes back safe) ride with us to our lines, 
And speak with Arac: Arac's word is thrice 
As ours with Ida; something may be done — 
I know not what — and ours shidl see us friends. 
You, likewise, our late guests, if so you will. 
Follow us: who knows? we four may build some plan- 
Foursquare to opposition." 

Here he reach'd 
White hands of farewell to my sire, who growl d 
An answer which, half-muffled in his beard, 
Let so much out as gave us leave to go. 

Then rode we with the old king across the lawns 
Beneath huge trees, a thousand rings of Spring 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. , 375 

In every hole, a song on every spray 

Of birds that piped their Valentines, and v^^oke 

Desire in me to infuse my tale of love 

In the old king's ears, who promis'd help, and ooz'd 

All o'er with honey'd answer as we rode; 

And blossom -fragrant slipt the heavy dews 

Gather'd by night and peace, with each light air 

On our mail'd heads; but other thoughts than Peace 

Burnt .in us, when we saw the embattled squares. 

And squadrons of the Prince, trampling the flowers 

With clamor: for among them rose a cry 

As if to greet the king: they made a halt; 

The horses yell'd; they clash'd their arms; the drum 

Beat; merrily blowing shrill'd the martial fife; 

And in the blast and bray of the long horn 

And serpent-throated bugle, undulated 

The banner: anon to meet us lightly pranc'd 

Three captains out; nor ever had I seen 

Such thews of men : the midmost and the highest 

Was Arac; all about his motion clung 

The shadow of his sister, as the beam 

Of the East, that play'd upon them, made them glance 

Like those three stars of the airy Giant's zone. 

That glitter burnish'd by the frosty dark ; 

And as the fiery Sirius alters hue. 

And bickers into red and emerald, shone 

Their morions, wash'd w^ith morning, as they came. 

And I that prated peace, when first I heard 
War-music, felt the blind wild beast of force, 
Whose home is in the sinews of a man. 
Stir in me as to strike; then took the king 
His three broad sons; with now a wandering hand 
And now a pointed finger, told them all: 
A common lig^ht of smiles at our dissruise 
Broke from their lips, and, ere the windy jest 
Had labor'd down within his ample lungs. 
The genial giant, Arac, roll'd himself 
Thrice in the saddle, then burst out in words. 

" Our land invaded, 'sdeath ! and he himself 
Your captive, yet my father wills not war: 
And, 'sdeath! myself, what care I, war or no? 
But then this question of your troth remains: 
And there's a downriorht honest meaning- in her; 



376 THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 

She flies too high, she flies too high! and yet 

She ask'd but space and fairpla y for her scheme : 

She prest and prest it on me — I myself, 

What know I of these things? but, life and soul! 

I thought her half-right talking of her wrongs: 

I say she flies too high, 'sdeath ! what of that? 

I take her for the flower of womankind. 

And so I often told her, right or wrong, 

And, Prince, she can be sweet to those she loves, 

And, right or wrong, I care not: this is all, 

I stand upon her side; she made me swear it — 

'Sdeath, — and with solemn rites by candle-light — 

Swear by St. something — I forget her name — 

Her that talk'd down the fifty wisest men; 

She was a princess too; and so I swore. 

Come, this is all; she will not: ^vaive your claim, 

If not, the foughten field, what else, at once 

Decides it, 'sdeath! against my father's will." 

I lagg'd in answer loath to render up 
Mv precontract, and loath by brainless war v 

To cleave the rift of difference deeper yet; 
Till one of those two brothers, half aside 
And fingering at the hair about his lip, 
To prick us on to combat " Like to like! 
The woman's garment hid the woman's heart." 
A taunt that clench'd his purpose like a blow ! 
For fiery-short was Cyril's counterscofl', 
And sharp I answer'd touch'd upon the point 
Where idle boys are cowards to their shame, 
" Decide it here: why not? we are three to three." 

Then spake the third, "But three to three? no more! 
No more, and in our noble sister's cause ? 
More, more, for honor: every captain ^vaits 
Hungry for honor, angry for his king. 
jNIore, more, some fifty on a side, that each 
]\Iav breathe himself, and quick! by overthrow 
Of these or those, the question settled die." 

" Yea," answer'd I, "for this Avild wreath of air, 
This flake of rainbow flying on the highest 
Foam of men's deeds — this honor, if ye vyill. 
It needs must be for honor if at all: 



THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 377 

Since, what decision? if we fail, we fail. 

And if we win, we fail: she would not keep 

Her compact." " 'Sdeath ! but we will send to her," 

Said Arac, " worthy reasons why she should 

Bide by this issue: let our missive thro'. 

And you shall have her answer by the word." 

" Boys! " shriek'd the old king, but vainlier than a hen 
To her false daughters in the pool; for none 
Regarded ; neither seem'd there more to say : 
Back rode we to my father's camp, and found 
He thrice had sent a herald to the gates. 
To learn if Ida yet would cede our claim, 
Or by denial flush her babbling wells 
With her own people's life: three times he went: 
The first, he blew and blew, but none appear'd: 
He batter'd at the doors; none cam-e: the next, 
An awful voice within had warn'd him thence: 
The third, and those eight daughters of the plough 
Came sallying through the gates, and caught his hair, 
And so belabor'd him on rib and cheek 
They made him wild: not less one glance he caught 
Thro' open doors of Ida station'd there 
Unshaken, clinging to her purpose, firm 
Tho' compass'd by two armies and the noise 
Of arms; and standing like a stately Pine 
Set in a cataract on an island-crag. 
When storm is on the heights, and right and left 
Suck'd from the dark heart of the long hills roil 
The torrents, dash'd to the vale: and yet her will 
Bred will in me to overcome or fall. 

But when I told the king that I was pledg'd 
To fight in tourne}^ for my bride, he clash'd 
His iron palms together with a cry; 
Himself would tilt it out among the lads : 
But overborne by all his bearded lords 
With reasons drawn from age and state, perforce 
He yielded, wroth and red, with fierce demur: 
And many a bold knight started up in heat, 
And sware to combat for my claim till death. 

All on this side the palace ran the field 
Flat to the garden wall : and likewise here. 



378 THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 

Above the garden's glowing blossom-belts, 

A column'd entry shone and marble stairs, 

And great bronze valves, emboss'd with Tomyris 

And what she did to Cyrus after fight. 

But now fast barr'd : so here upon the flat 

All that long morn the lists \\'ere hammer'd up, 

And all that morn the heralds to and fro. 

With message and defiance, ^vent and came; 

Last, Ida's answer, in a rov'^l hand. 

But shaken here and there, and rolling words 

Oration-like. I kiss'd it and I read. 

" O brother, yow have known the pangs we felt, 
What heats of indignation when we heard 
Of those that iron-cramp'd their women's feet; 
Of lands in which at the altar the poor bride 
Gives her harsh groom for bridal-gift a scourge; 
Of living hearts that crack within the fire 
Where smoulder their dead despots; and of those,— 
Mothers, — that, all prophetic pity, fling 
Their pretty maids in the running flood, and swoops 
The vulture, beak and talon, at the heart 
Made for all noble motion: and I saw 
That equal baseness lived in sleeker times 
With smoother men: the old leaven leaven'd all: 
Millions of throats v/ould bawl for civil rights, 
No woman named: therefore I set xwy face 
Against all men, and lived but for mine own, 
Far oflf froin men I built a fold for them: 
I stored it full of rich inemorial : 
I fenc'd it round with gallant institutes. 
And biting laws to scare the beasts of prey. 
And prosper'd; till a rout of saucy boys 
Brake on us at our books, and marr'd our peace, 
Mask'd like our maids, blustering I knew not what 
Of insolence and love, some pretext held 
Of baby troth, invalid, since my will 
Seal'd not the bond — the striplings! — for their sport !- 
I tamed my leopards: shall I not tame these? 
Or you? or I? for since you think me touch'd 
In honor — what, I would not aught of false — 
Is not our cause pure? and whereas I know 
Your prowess, Arac, and vv^hat mother's blood 
You draw from, fight, you fiiiling, I abide 
What end soever: fail you will not. Still 



THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 379 

Take not his life: he risk'd it for my own; 

His mother lives: yet whatsoe'er you do, 

Fight and fight well; strike and strike home. O dear 

Brothers, the woman's Angel guards you, you 

The sole men to be mingled with our cause, 

The sole men we shall prize in the afrer-time, 

Your very armor hallov\''d, and your statues 

Rear'd, sung to, when this gad-fly brush'd aside, 

We plant a solid foot into the Time, 

And mould a generation strong to move 

With claim on claim, from right to right, till she 

Whose name is 3'oked v/ith children's, kno^v herself; 

And knowledge in onr ov\ai land make her free. 

And, ever following those two crowned twins. 

Commerce and conquest, shower the fier}^ grain 

Of freedom broadcast over all that orbs 

Between the Northern and the Southern morn." 

Then came a postcript dash'd across the rest. 
" See that there be no 'traitors in your camp : 
We seem a nest of traitors — none to trust: 
Since our arms fail'd — this Egypt plague of men! 
Almost our maids were better at their homes. 
Than thus man-girdled here : indeed I think 
Our chiefest comfort is the little child 
Of one unv^orthy mother; which she left: 
She shall not have it back: the child shall grow 
To prize the authentic mother of her mmd. 
I took it for an hour in my own bed 
TTTis morning: there the tender orphan hands 
Felt at my heart, and seemed to charm from thence 
The wrath I nurs'd' against the world : farewell." 

I ceased: he said: " Stubborn, but she mav sit 
Upon a king's right hand in thunderstorms, 
And breed up warriors! See now, tho' yourself 
Be dazzled bv the wildfire Love to slouo-hs 

•J o 

That swallow common sense, the spindling kino-, 

This Gama swamp'd in lazy tolerance. 

When the man wants weight, the woman takes it ujd^ 

But topples down the scales; but this is fixt 

As are the roots of earth and base of all ; 

Man for the field and woman for the hearth; 

Man for the sword and for the needle she: 



380 THE PRIXCESS: A MED LET. 

Man with the head and woman with the heart: 

Man to command and woman to obey; 

Al] else confusion. Look you! the gray mare 

Is ill to live with, when her whinny shiills 

From tile to scullery, and her small good-man 

Shrinks in his arm-chair while the fires of Hell 

Mix with his hearth : but you — she's yet a colt — 

Take, break her: strongly groom'd and straitly curb'd 

She might not rank with those detestable 

That let the bantling scald at home, and brawl 

Their rights and ^vrongs like potherbs in the street. 

They say she's comeh^ ; there's the fairer chance • 

/ like her none the less for rating at her! 

Besides, the woman wed is not as we, 

But suffers change of frame. A lusty brace 

Of twins may weed her of her folly. Boy, 

The bearinof and the traininor- of a child 

Is woman's wisdom." 

Thus the hard old king: 
I took my leave, for it \yas nearly noon* 
I pored upon her letter which I held. 
And on the little clause "take not his life: " 
I mused on that wild morning in the wood. 
And on the " Follow, follow, thou shalt v/in : " 
I thought on all the wrathful king had said, 
And how the strange betrothment was to end : 
Then I remember'd that burnt sorcerer's curse 
That one should fight with shadows and should fall; 
And like a flash the ^veird affection came. 
King, camp and college turned to hollow shows; 
I seem'd to move in old memorial tilts. 
And doing battle with forgotten ghosts. 
To dream myself the shadow of a dream: 
And ere I woke it was the point of noon, 
The lists \vere ready. Empanoplied and plumed 
A\'e enter'd in, and waited, fifty there 
Opposed to fifty, till the trumpet blared 
At the bcirrier like a wild liorn in a land 
Of echoes, and a moment, and once more 
The trumpet, and again: which the storm 
Of galloping hoofs bare on the ridge of spears 
And riders front to front, until they closed 
In conflict with the crash of shivering points. 
And thunder. Yet it seem'd a dream: I dream'd 
Of fighting. On his haunches rose the steed. 



THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 381 

And into fiery splinters leapt the lance, 

And out of stricken helmets sprang the fire. 

A noble dream! what w^as it else I saw? 

Part sat like rocks; part reel'd but kept their seats; 

Part roll'd on the earth and rose again and drew; 

Part stumbled mixt with floundering horses. Down 

From those two bulks at Arac's side, and down 

From Arac's arm, as from a giant's flail, 

The large blows rain'd, as here and everywhere 

He rode the mellay, lord of the ringing lists, 

And all the plain — brand, mace, and shaft, and shield — 

Shock'd, like an iron-clanging anvil bang'd 

With hammers; till I thought, can this be he 

From Gama's dwarfish loins? if this be so. 

The mother makes us most — and in iny dreain 

I glanc'd aside, and saw^ the palace-front 

Alive with fluttering scarfs and ladies' eyes, 

And highest, among the statues, statue-like, 

Between a cymbal'd Miriam and a Jael, 

With Psyche's babe, was Ida watching us, 

A single band of gold about her hair. 

Like a Saint's glory up in heaven: but she 

No saint — inexorable — no tenderness — 

Too hard, too cruel : yet she sees me fight. 

Yea, let her see me fall! with that I drave 

Among the thickest and bore down a Prince, 

And Cyril, one. Yea, let me make m}^ dream 

All that I would. But that large-moulded man. 

His visage all agrin as at a wake, 

Made at me thro' the press, and, staggering back, 

With stroke on stroke the horse and horseman came 

As comes a pillar of electric cloud, 

Flaying the roofs and sucking up the drains, 

And shadowing down the champaign till it strikes 

On a wood, and takes, and breaks, and cracks, and splits 

And twists the grain with such a roar that Earth 

Reels, and the herdsmen cry; for everything 

Gave way before him : only Florian, he 

That loved mc cjoser than his own right eye. 

Thrust in between; but Arac rode him down: 

And Cyril seeing it, push'd against the Prince, 

With Psyche's color round his helmet, tough, 

Strong, supple, sinew-corded, apt at arms; 

But tougher, heavier, stronger, he that smote 

And threw him: last I spurr'd; I felt my veins 



382 



THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 



Stretch with fierce heat; a moment hand to hand, 
And sword to sword, and horse to horse we hung, 
Till I struck out and shouted; the blade glanc'd; 
I did but shear a feather, and dream and truth 
Flow'd from me; darkness closed me; and I fell. 




Home they brought her warrior dead : 
She nor swoon'd, nor utter'd cry: 

All her maidens, watching, said, 
" She must weep or she wall die." 



Then they praised him^ soft and low, 
Call'd him worthy to be loved. 

Truest friend and noblest foe ; 

Yet she neither spoke nor moved. 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 383 



Stole a maiden from her place, 
Lightly to the warrior stept, 

Took the face-cloth from, the face ; 
Yet she neither moved nor wept. 



Rose a nurse of ninety years, 
Set his child upon her knee — 

Like summer tempest came her tears- 
" Sweet mv child, I live for thee." 



VI. 



My dream had never died or lived again. 
As in some mystic middle state I lay ; 
Seeing I sa\v not, bearing not I heard; 
Tho', if I saw not, yet they told me all 
So often that I speak as having seen. 

For so it seem'd, or so thev said to me, 
That all things grew more tragic and more strange; 
That when our side was vanquish'd and my cause 
Forever lost, there went up a great cry, 
The Prince is slain. My father heard and ran 
In on the lists, and there unlaced my casque 
And grovell'd on ray body, and after him 
Came Psyche, sorrowing for Aglaia. 

But high upon the palace Ida stood 
With Psyche's babe in arm : there on the roofs 
Like that great dame of Lapidoth she sang. 

" Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n : the seed 
The little seed they laugh'd at in the dark, 
Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a bulk 
Of spanless girth, that lays on every side 
A thousand arms and rushes to the sun. 

" Our enemies have fall'n, ha^-e fall'n: they came: 
The leaves were wet with women's tears: they heard 
A noise of songs they would not understand : 
They mark'd it with the red cross to the fall. 
And would have strown it, and are fall'n themselves. 



384 



THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 



" Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they came, 
The w^oodmen w^ith their axes: lo the tree! 
But we ^vill make it fagots for the hearth, 
And shape it plank and beam for roof and floor, 
And boats and bridges for the use of men. 

" Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they struck; 
With their own blows they hurt themselves, nor knew 
There dwelt an iron nature in the grain : 
The glittering axe was broken in their arms. 
Their arms were shatter'd to the shoulder blade. 

" Our enemies have fall'n, but this shall grow 
A night of Summer from the heat, a breadth 
Of Autumn, dropping fruits of power; and roll'd 
With music in the growing breeze of Time, 
The tops shall strike from star to star, the fangs 
Shall move the stony bases of the world. 

t> 

" And now, O maids, behold our sanctuary 
Is violate, our laws broken : fear we not 
To break them more in their behoof, whose arms 
Champlon'd our cause and won it with a day 
Blanch'd in our annals, and perpetual feast. 
When dames and heroines of the golden year 
Shall strip a hundred hollows bare of Spring, 
To rain an April of ovation round 
Their statues borne aloft, the three : but come, 
We will be liberal, since our rights are won. 
Let them not lie in the tents with coarse mankind, 
111 nurses; but descend, and profiler these 
The brethren of our blood and cause, that there 
Lie bruis'd and maim'd, the tender ministries 
Of female hands and hospitality." 

She spoke, and with the babe yet in her arms, 
Descending, burst the great bronze valves, and led 
A hundred maids in train across the Park. 
Some cowl'd, and some bare-headed, on they came, 
Their feet in flowers, her loveliest: by them went 
The enamor'd air sighing, and on their curls 
From the high tree the blossom wavering fell, 
And over them the tremulous isles of light 
Slided, they moving under shade: but Blanche 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 385 

At distance follow'd: so they came: anon 

Thro' open field into the Ksts they wound 

Timorously; and as the leader of the herd 

That holds a stately fretwork to the sun, 

And follow'd up by a hundred airy does, 

Steps with a tender foot, light as on air, 

The lovely^ lordl}^ creature floated on 

To where her wounded brethren lay; there stay'd; 

Knelt on one knee, — the child on one, — and prest 

Their hands, and call'd them dear deliverers, 

And happy warriors and immortal names. 

And said, "You shall not lie in the tents but here, 

And nurs'd by those, for whom you fought, and serv'd 

With female hands and hospitalit}-," 

Then, whether mov'd by this, or was it chance. 
She past my way. Up started from my side 
The old lion, glaring with liis whelpless eye, 
Silent; but when she saw me lying stark, 
Dishelm'd and mute, and motionlessly pale. 
Cold ev'n to her, she sigh'd; and when she saw 
The haggard father's face and reverend beard 
Of grisly twine, all dabbled with the blood 
Of his own son, shudder'd a twitch of pain, 
Tortured her mouth, and o'er her forehead past 
A shadow, and her hue changed, and she said : 
" He saved my life: my brother slew him for it." 
No more: at which the king in bitter scorn 
Drew from my neck the painting and the tress, 
And held them up: she saw them, and a day 
Rose from the distance on her memory. 
When the good Queen, her mother, shore the tress 
With kisses, ere the da\'s of Lady Blanche : 
And then once more she look'd at my pale face: 
Till understanding all the foolish ^vork 
Of Fancy, and the bitter close of all. 
Her iron will was broken in her mind; 
Her noble heart v^as molten in her breast; 
She bow'd, she set the child on the eaith; she laid 
A feeling finger on my brows, and presently 
" O Sire," she said, " he lives? he is not dead: 
O let me have him with my brethren here 
In our own palace: w^e w^ill tend on him 
Like one of these; if so, by any means, 



25 



386 THE PRIX CESS: A MED LET. 

To lighten this great clog of thanks, that make 
Our progress falter to the woman's goal." 

She said: but at the happy word "he lives," 
My father stoop'd, re-father'd o'er my wounds. 
So those two foes above my fallen life, 
With brow to brow like night and evening mixt 
Their dark and gray, while Psyche ever stole 
A little nearer, till the babe that by us, 
Half-lapt in glowing gauze and golden brede, 
Lay like a new fall'n meteor on the grass, 
Uncared for, spied its mother and began 
A blind and babbling laughter, and to dance 
Its body, and reach its fatling innocent arms 
And lazy lingering fingers. She the appeal 
Brook'd not, but clamoring out " Mine — mine — not your 
It is not yours, but mine: give me the child," 
Ceas'd all on tremble: piteous was the cry: 
♦ So stood the unhappy mother open-mouth'd, 

And turn'd her face each way : wan was her cheek 
With hollow watch, her blooming mantle torn, 
Red grief and mother's hunger in her eye. 
And down dead-heavy sank her curls, and half 
The sacred mother's bosom, panting burst 
The laces toward her babe; but she nor cared 
Nor knew it, clamoring on, till Ida heard, 
Look'd up, and rising slowly from me, stood 
Erect and silent, striking with her glance 
The mother, me, the child; but he that lay 
Beside us, Cyril, batter'd as he was, 
Trail'd himself up on one knee; then he drew 
Her robe to meet his lips, and down she look'd 
At the arm'd man sideways, pitying, as it seem'd, 
Or self-involv'd ; but when she learnt his face. 
Remembering his ill-omen'd song, arose 
Once more thro' all her height, and o'er him grew 
Tall as a fiofure leno^then'd on the sand 
When the tide ebbs in sunshine, and he said: 

O fair and strong and terrible! Lioness 
That with your long locks play the Lion's mane! 
But Love and Nature, these are two more terrible 
And stronger. See, your foot is on our necks, 
We vanquish'd, you the victor of your will, 



THE PRINCESS: A MED LET, 387 



What would you more? give her the child! remain 
Orb'd in your isolation: he is dead, 
Or all as dead: henceforth we let you be: 
Win you the hearts of women ; and beware 
Lest, where you seek the common love of these. 
The common hate with the revolving wheel 
Should drag you down, and some great Nemesis 
Break from a daiken'd future, crown'd with fire 
And tread you out forever: but howso'er 
Fix'd in yourself, never in your own arms 
To hold your own, deny not hers to her, 
Give her the child! O if, I sa}^, you keep 
One pulse that beats true woman, if you lov'd 
The breast that fed or arm that dandled you. 
Or own one part of sense not flint to prayer. 
Give her the child! or if you scorn to lay it, 
Yourself, in hands so lately claspt with yours, 
Or speak to her, your dearest, her one fault 
The tenderness, not yours, that could not kill, 
Give 7ne it; /will give it her." 

He said: 
At first her eye with slow dilation roll'd 
Dry flame, she listening; after sank and sank 
And, into mournful twilight mellowing, dwelt 
Full on the child; she took it: "Pretty bud! 
Lily of the vale! half open'd bell of the woods! 
Sole comfort of my dark hour, when a world 
Of traitorous friend and broken system made 
No purple in the distance, mystery. 
Pledge of a love not to be miue, farewell ; 
These men are hard U2^on us as of old. 
We too must part: and yet how fain was I 
To dream thy cause embrac'd in mine, to think 
I might be something to thee, when I felt 
Thy helpless warmth about my barren breath 
In the dead prime : but may thy mother prove 
As true to thee as false, false, false to me ! 
And, if thou needs must bear the yoke, I wish it 
Gentle as freedom " — here she kiss'd it: then — 
"All good go with thee! take it. Sir," and so 
Laid the soft babe in his hard-mailed hands. 
Who turn'd half-round to Psyche as she sprang 
To meet it, with an eye that swum in thanks: 
Then felt it sound and whole from head to foot, 
And hugg'd and never hugg'd it close enough, 



388 THE PRINCESS: A MED LET". 

And in her hunger mouth'd and mumbled it, 
And hid her bosom with it; after that 
Put on more cahn and added suppliantly: 

"We tw^o were friends: I go to mine own hind 
Forever: find some other: as for me 
I scarce am fit for your great plans: yet speak to me, 
Say one soft word and let mie part forgiven." 

But Ida spoke not, rapt upon the child. • 
Then Arac. " Ida — 'sdeath! ^•ou blame the man; 
You Vk^rong yourselves — the woman is so hard 
Upon the woman. Come, a grace to me! 
I am your warrior; I and mine have fought 
Your battle; kiss her; take her hand, she weeps: 
'Sdeath! I would sooner fight thrice o'er than see it." 

But Ida spoke not, gazing on the ground, 
And reddening in the furrows of his chin, 
And moved beyond his custom, Gama said: 

" I've heard that there is iron in the blood. 
And I believe it. Not one word? not one? 
Whence drew you this steel temper? not from mc. 
Not from your mother, now a saint with saints. 
She said you had a heart — I heard her say it — 
' Our Ida has a heart' — ^just ere she died — 
' But see that some one w^ith authority 
Be near her still,' and I — I sought for one — 
All people said she had authority — 
The Lady Blanche: much profit! Not one word; 
No! tho' your father sues: see how you stand 
' Stiff as Lot's wife, and all the good knights maim'd, 

I trust that there is no one hurt to death, 
For your ^vild whim : and was it then for this, 
Was it for this we gave our palace up, 
Where we withdiew from summer heats and state, 
And had our w4ne and chess beneath the j^lanes, 
And many a pleasant hour with her that's gone. 
Ere 3-0U were born to vex us? Is it kind? 
Speak to her I say : is this the son of whom 
When first she came, all flush'd you said to me 
Now had you got a friend of your own age, 
Now could you share your thought: now should men see 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLET. 389 

Two women faster welded in one love 

Than pairs of wedlock ; she you walk d with, she 

You talk'd with, whole nights long, up in the tower, 

Of sine and arc, spheroid and azimuth 

And right ascension^ Heaven knows what; and now 

A word, but one, one little kindly word. 

Not one to spare her: out upon you, flint! 

You love nor her, nor me, nor any : nay 

You shame your mother's judgment too. Not one? 

You will not ? well — no heart have you, or such 

As fancies like the vermin in a nut 

Have fretted all to dust and bitterness." 

So said the small king moved beyond his wont. 

But Ida stood nor spoke, drain'd of her force 
By many a varying influence and so long. 
Down thro' her limbs a drooping languor wept: 
Her head a little bent, a-nd on her mouth 
A doubtful smile dwelt like a clouded moon 
In a still water: then brake out my su-e 
Lifting his grim head from my wounds. " O you, 
Woman, whom we thought woman even now, 
And w^ere half fool'd to let you tend our son. 
Because he might have wish'd it — but we see 
The accomplice of your madness unforgiven, 
And think that you might mix his draught with death 
When your skies change again: the rougher hand 
Is safer: on to the tents: take up the Prince." 

He rose, and while each ear was prick'd to attend 
A tempest, thro' the cloud that dimm'd her broke 
A oenial warmth and ligfht once more, and shone 
Thro' glittering drops on her sad friend. 

" Come hither, 

Psyche," she cried out, " embrace me, come, ; 
Quick while I melt; make reconcilement sure 

With one that cannot keep her mind an hour: 
Come to the liollow heart they slander so! 
Kiss and be friends, like children being chid! 
/ seem no more: /want forgiveness too: 

1 should have had to do with none but maids. 
That have no links with men. Ah false but dear. 
Dear traitor, too much loved, why? — why? Yet see. 
Before these Icings we embrace you yet once more 



390 THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 

With all forgiveness, all oblivion, 
And trust, not love, you less. 

And now, O Sire, 
Grant me your son, to nurse, to w^ait upon hin, 
Like mine ovsrn brother. For my debt to him, 
This nightmare w^eight of gratitude, I know it; 
Taunt me no more: yourself and yours shall have 
Free adit; we will scatter all our maids 
Till happier times each to her proper hearth; 
What use to keep them here — now? grant my prayer. 
Help, father, brother, help: speak to the king: 
Thaw this male nature to some touch of that 
Which kills me with myself and drags me down 
From my fixt height to mob me up with all 
The soft and milky rabble of womankind, 
Poor weakling ev'n as they are." 

Passionate tears 
Followed: the king replied not: Cyril said: 
"Your brother, Lady,— Florian, — ask for him 
Of 3'^our great head — for he Is wounded too — 
That you may tend upon hmi with the Prince." 
" Ay so," said Ida with a bitter smile, 
" Our laws are broken: let him enter too." 
Then Violet, she that sang the mournful song. 
And had a cousin tumbled on the plain, 
Petition'd too for him. " Ay so," she said, 
" I stagger in the stream : I cannot keep 
My heart an eddy from the brawling hour: 
We break our laws with ease, but let :t be." 
*' Ay so," said Blanche: " Amaz'd am I to hear 
Your Highness: but your Highness breaks with ease 
The law your Highness did not make: 'twas I. 
I had been wedded wife, I knew mankind, 
And blocked them out; but these men came to woo 
Your Highness — verily I think to w4n." 

So she, and turn'd askance a wintry eye: 
But Ida, with a voice, that like a bell 
Toll'd by an earthquake in a trembling tower. 
Rang ruin, answer'd full of grief and scorn. 

"Fling our doors wide! all, all, not one, but all, 
Not only he, but by my mother's soul, 
Whatever man lies wounded, friend or foe, 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEl'. 391 

Shall enter, if he will. Let our girls fiit, 
Till the storm die ! but had you stood by us, 
The roar that breaks the Pharos from his base 
Had left us rock. She fain would sting- us too 
But shall not. Pass, and mingle with your likes. 
We brook no further insult, but are gone." 

She turn'd; the very nape of her white neck 
Was rosed ^vith indignation; but the Prince 
Her brother came; the king her father charni'd 
Her wounded soul with words: nor did mine own 
Refuse her proffer, lastly gave his hand. ^ 

Then us they lifted up, dead weights, and hare 
Straight to the doors: to them the doors ga\e way 
Groaning, and in the Vestal entrv shriek'd 
The virgin marble under iron heels: 
And on they moved and gain'd the hall, and there 
Rested : but great the crush was, and each base, 
To left and right, of those tall columns drown'd 
In silken fluctuation and the swarm 
Of female whisperers: at the further end 
Was Ida by the throne, the tw^o great cats 
Close by her, like supporters on a shield, 
Bow-back'd with fear: but in the centre stood 
The common men with rolling eyes; amaz'd 
They glared upon the women, and aghast 
The women stared at these, all silent, save, 
When armor clash'd or jingled, while the day, 
Descending, struck athwart the hall and shot 
A flying splendor out of brass and steel. 
That o'er the statues leapt from head to head, 
Now fired an angry Pallas on the helm, 
Now set a wrathful Dian's moon on flame, 
And now and then an echo started up, 
And shuddering fled from room to room, and died 
Of fright in far apartmxcnts. 

Then the voice 
Of Ida sounded, issuing ordinance : 
And me they bore up the broad stairs, and thro' 
The long-laid galleries past a hundred doors 
To one deep chamber shut from sound, and due 
To languid limbs and sickness; left me in it; 
And others otherwhere they laid; and all 



392 THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 

That afternoon a sound arose of hoof 
And chariot, many a maiden passing home 
Till happier times; but some were left of those 
Held sagest, and the great lords out and ir., 
From those two hosts that lay beside the walls, 
Walk'd at their will, t»nd everything changed. 



Ask me no more : the moon may draw the sea ; 

The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape, 
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape ; 

But, O too fond, -when have I answer'd thee? 
Ask me no more. 



Ask me no more: what answer should I give? 
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye: 
Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die! 

Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live ; 
Ask me no more. 



Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal'd: 
I strove against the stream and all in vain : 
Let the great river take me to the main: 

No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield; 
Ask me no more. 



VII. 



So was their sanctuary violated. 

So their fair college turn'd to hospital; 

At first with all confusion: by and by 

Sweet order lived again with other laws: 

A kindlier influence reign'd; and everywhere 

Low voices with the ministering hand 

Hung round the sick: the maidens came, thev talk'd, 

They sang, they read: till she not fair, began 

To gather light, and she that was, became 

Her former beauty treble; and to and fro 

With books, with flowers, with Angel offices. 

Like creatures native unto gracious act. 

And in their own clear element, they moved. 

But sadness on the soul of Ida fell. 
And hatred of her weakness, blent with shame. 
Old studies fail'd ; seldom she spoke ; but oft 
Clomb to the roofs, and gazed alone for hours 



THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 393 

On that disastrous leaguer, swarms of men 
Darkening her female field ; void was her use, 
And she as one that climbs a peak to gaze 
O'er land and main, and sees a great black cloud 
Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night. 
Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore. 
And suck the blinding splendor from the sand, 
And quenching lake by lake and tarn by tarn 
Expunge the world: so fared she gazing there; 
So blacken'd all her world in secret, blank 
And w^aste it seem'd and vain; till down she came, 
And found fair peace once more among the sick. 

And twilight dawn'd; and morn by morn the lark 
Shot up and shrill'd in flickering gyres, but I 
Lay silent in the muffled cage of life: 
And twilight gloom'd; and broader grown the bowers 
Drew the great night into themselves, and Heaven, 
Star after star, arose and fell; but I, 
Deeper than those weird doubts could reach me, lay 
Quite sunder'd from the moving Universe, 
Nor knew what eye was on me, nor the hand 
That nurs'd me, more than infants in their sleep. 

But Psyche tended Florian: with her oft 
Melissa came; for Blanche had gone, but left 
Her child among us, willing she should keep 
Court-fiivor: here and there the small bright head, 
A light of healing, glanc'd about the couch. 
Or thro' the parted silks the tender face 
Peep'd, shining in upon the wounded man 
With blush and smile, a medicine in themselves 
To wile the length from languorous hours, and draw 
The sting from pain; nor seem'd it strange that soon 
He rose up whole, and those fair charities 
Join'd at her side; nor stranger seem'd that hearts 
So enjoy'd, so employ'd, should close in love. 
Than v^hen two dew drops on the j^etal shake 
To the same sweet air, and tremble deeper down, 
And slip at once all-fragrant into one. 

Less prosperously the second suit obtain'd • 
At first with Psyche. Not though Blanche had sworn 
That after that dark night among the fields, 



394 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 



She needs must wed him for her own good name; 
Not tho' he built upon the babe restored; 
Nor tho' she Hked him, yielded she, but fear'd 
To incense the Head once more ; till on a day 
When Cyril pleaded, Ida came behind 
Seen but of Psyche: on her foot she hung 
A moment, and she heard, at which her face 
A little flush'd, and she past on : but each 
Assum'd from thence a half-consent involv'd 
In stillness, plighted troth, and were at peace. 

Not only these: Love in the sacred halls 
Held carnival at ^vill, and flying struck 
With showers of random sweet on maid and man. 
Nor did her father cease to press my claim. 
Nor did mine own now reconciled; nor vet 
Did those twin brothers, risen again and whole; 
Nor Arac, satiate with his victory. 

But I lay still, and with me oft she sat: 
Then came a change; for sometimes I would catch 
Her hand in vs^ild delirium, gripe it hard. 
And fling it like a viper off, and shriek 
"You are not Ida;" clasp it once again, 
And call her Ida, tho' I knew her not, 
And call her sv/eet, as if in irony. 
And call her hard and cold which seem'd a truth: 
And still she fear'd that I should lose my mind, 
And often she believ'd that I should die : 
Till out of long frustration of her care, 
And pensive tendance in the all-weary noons, 
And watches in the dead, the dark, when clocks 
Throbb'd thunder thro' the palace floors, or call'd 
On flying Time from all their silver tongues — 
And out of memories of her kindlier days. 
And sidelong glances at my father's grief. 
And at the happy lovers heart in heart — 
And out of hauntings of my spoken love. 
And lonely listenings to my mutter'd dream. 
And often feeling of the helpless hands. 
And wordless brood ings on the wasted cheek — 
From all a closer interest flourish'd up. 
Tenderness touch by touch, and last, to these, 
Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tears 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 395 

By some cold morning glacier; frail at first 
And feeble, all unconscious of itself, 
But such as gather'd color day by day. 

Last I \¥oke sane, but wellnigh close to death 
For weakness: it was evening: silent light 
Slept on the painted walls, wherein were wrought 
Two grand designs: for on one side arose 
The women up in wild revolt, and storm'd 
At the Oppian law. Titanic shapes, they cramm'd 
The forum, and half-crush'd among the rest 
A dwarf like Cato cower'd. On the other side 
Hortensia spoke against the tax; behind, 
A train of dames: by axe and eagle sat. 
With all their foreheads drawn in Roman scowls, 
And half the woirs-milk curdled in their veins, 
The fierce triumvirs: and before them paused 
Hortensia, pleading : angry was her face. 

I saw the forms: I knew not where I was: 
They did but seem as hollow shows; nor more 
Sweet Ida: palm to palm she sat: the dew 
Dwelt in her eyes, and softer all her shape 
And rounder show'd : I moved : I sighYl : a touch 
Came round my wrist, and tears upon my hand: 
Then all for languor and self-pity ran 
Mine down my face, and with what life I had, 
And like a flow^er that cannot all unfold. 
So drench'd it is with tempest, to the sun. 
Yet, as it may, turns toward him, I on her 
Fixt my faint eyes, and utter'd whisperingly : 

" If you be, what I think you, some sweet dream, 
I would but ask you to fulfil yourself: 
But if you be that Ida whom I knew, 
I ask you nothing: only, if a dream, 
Svv^eet dream, be perfect. I shall die to-night. 
Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die." 

I could no more, but lay like one in trance, 
That hears his burial talk'd of by his friends. 
And cannot speak, nor move, nor make one sign. 
But lies and dreads his doom. She turn'd; she paus'd; 
She stoop'd ; and out of languor leapt a cry ; 



396 THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 

Leapt fiery Passion from the brinks of death: 
And I believ'd that in the living world 
My spirit closed with Ida's at the lips; 
Till hack I fell, and from mine arms she rose 
Glowing all over noble shame; and all 
Her falser self slipt from her like a robe, 
And left her w^oman, lovelier in her mood 
Than in her mould that other, when she came 
From barren deeps to conquer all w^ith love; 
And down the streaming crystal dropt; and she 
Far-fleeted by the purple island-sides. 
Naked, a double light in air and wave, 
To meet her Graces, where they deck'd her out 
For worship without end; nor end of mine, 
Stateliest, for thee! but mute she glided forth, 
Nor glanc'd behind her, and I sank and slept, 
Fill'd thro' and thro' with Love, a happy sleep. 

Deep in the night I woke: she, near me, held 
A volume of the Poets of her land: 
There to herself, all in low tones, she read. 

" Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white; 
Nor waves the cypress in the palace v^'alk; 
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font : 
The firefly wakens: waken thou with me. 

" Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost, 
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. 

"'Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars, 
And all thy heart lies open unto me. 

" Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves 
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. 

" Now folds the lily all her sweetness up. 
And slips into the bosom of the lake : 
So fold th3'self, my dearest, thou, and slip 
Into my bosom and be lost in me." 

I heard her turn the page; she found a small 
Sweet Idyl, and once more, as low, she read: 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY 



397 



"^^^1 




" Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: 
What pleasure lives Tn height (the shepherd sang) 
In heigJit and cold, the splendor of the hills? 
But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease 
To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, 
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire; 
And come, for Love is of the valley, come. 
For Love is of the valley, come thou down 
And find him; by the happy threshold, he, 
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize. 
Or red ^vith sj^irted purple of the vats. 
Or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to ^valk 
With Death and Morning on the Silver Horns, 
Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine, 
Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice. 
That huddling slant in furrow-clov^en falls 
To roll the torrent out of dusky doors : 
But follow; let the current dance thee do^vn 
To find him in the valley; let the wild 



398 THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 

Lean-headed eagles yelp alone, and leave 

The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill 

Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-spioke, 

That like a broken purpose, waste in air: 

So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales 

Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth 

Arise to thee; the children call, and I 

Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound. 

Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet; 

Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn. 

The moan of doves in immemorial elms. 

And murmuring of innumerable bees." 

So she low-toned; while with shut eyes I lay 
Listening; then look'd. Pale was the perfect face; 
The bosom with long sighs labor'd; and meek 
Seem'd the full lips, and mild the luminous eyes, 
And the voice trembled and the hand. She said 
Brokenly, that she knew^ it, she had fail'd 
In sweet humility; had f^iil'd in all; 
That all her labor Avas but as a block 
Left in the quarry; but she still were loath, 
Siie still \vere loath to yield herself to one. 
That wholly scorn'd to help their equal rights 
Against the sons of men, and barbarous laws. 
She pray'd me not to judge their cause from her 
That wrong'd it, sought far less for truth than power 
Li knowledsre: something;- wild within her breast, 
A greater than all knowledge, beat her down, 
And she had nursM me there from week to week; 
Much had she learnt in little time. In part 
It was ill counsel that misled the girl 
To vex true hearts : yet was she but a girl — 
" Ah fool, and made myself a Queen of farce! 
When comes another such! never, I think 
Till the sun drop dead from the signs." 

Her voice 
Choked, and her forehead sank upon her hands, 
And her great heart thro' all the faultful Past 
Went sorrowing in a pause I dared not break; 
Till notice of a change in the dark world 
Was lisped about the acacias, and a bird, 
That early woke to feed her little ones, 
Sent from a devv^y breast a cry for light: 
She moved, and at her feet the volume fell. 



THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 399 

'' Blame not thyself too much," I said, "nor blame 
Too much the sons of men and barbarous laws; 
These were the rough wa3''s of the world till now. 
Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know 
The woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink 
Together, dwarPd or godlike, bond or free: 
For she that out of Lethe scales with man 
The shining steps of nature, shares with man 
His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal, 
Stays all the fair young planet in her hands — 
If she be small, slight-natured, miserable, 
How^ shall men grow? but work no more alone! 
Our place is much : as far as in us lies 
We two will serve them both in aiding her — 
Will clear away the parasitic forms 
That seem to keep her up but drag her down — 
Will leave her space to burgeon out of all 
Within her — let her make herself her own 
To give or keep, to live and learn and be 
All that not liarms distinctive womanhood : 
For woman is not undevelopt inan. 
But diverse: could we make her as the man. 
Sweet Love were slain: his dearest bond is this. 
Not like to like, but like in difference. 
Yet in the long years liker must they grow; 
The man be more of woman, she of man; 
He gain in sweetness and in moral height, 
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; 
She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, - 
Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind; 
Till at the last she set herself to man. 
Like perfect music unto noble words; 
And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, 
Sit side by side, full-summ'd in all their powers, 
Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, 
Self- reverent each and reverencing each, 
Distinct ill individualities. 
But like each other ev'n as those who love. 
Then comes the statelier Eden back to men : 
Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm : 
Then springs the crowning race of humankind. 
May these things be! " 

Sighing she spoke, " I fear 
Thev will not." 



400 THE PRINCESS: A MEDLET. 

" Dear, but let us type them- now 
In our own lives, and this proud watchword rest 
Of equal; seeing either sex alone 
Is half itself, and in true marriage lies 
Nor equal, nor unequal : each fulfils 
Defect in each, and always thought in thought, 
Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow. 
The single pure and perfect animal. 
The two-cell'd heart beating, with one full stroke, 
Life." 

And again sighing she spoke: "A dream 
That once was mine! what woman taught you this?'* 

" Alone," I said, " from earlier than I know, 
Immers'd in rich foreshadowings of the world, 
I loved the woman: he, that doth not, lives 
A drowning life, besotted in sweet self. 
Or pines in sad experience worse than death, 
Or keeps his wing'd affections dipt with crime: 
Yet was there one thro' whom I loved her, one 
Not learn'd, save in gracious household ways, 
Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants 
No Angel, but a dearer being, all dipt 
In Angel instincts, breathing Paradise, 
Interpreter between the Gods and men. 
Who look'd all native to her place, and yet 
On tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a sphere 
Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce 
Sway'd to her from their orbits as they moved, 
And girdled her with music. Happy he 
With such a mother! fiiith in womankind 
Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high 
Comes easy to him, and tho' he trip and tall 
He shall not blind his soul with clay." 

" But I," 
Said Ida, tremulously, " so all unlike — 
It seems you love to cheat yourself with words: 
This mother is your model. I have heard 
Of your strange doubts: they well might be: I seem 
A mocker)^ to my own self. Never, Prince; 
You cannot love me." 

" Nay but thee," I said 
" From yearlong poring on thy pictur'd eyes, 
Ere seen I loved, and loved thee seen, and saw 









^, 










« A bird 
That earlj woke to feed her little ones." 

See page jgS. 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY'. 401 

Thee woman thro' the crust of iron moods 

That mask'd thee from men's reverence up, and forc'd 

Sweet love on pranks of saucy bojdiood: now, 

Giv'n back to Hfe, to Hfe indeed, thro' thee, 

Indeed I love : the new day comes, the lighjt 

Dearer for night, as dearer thou for faults 

Lived over: lift thine eyes; my doubts are dead,' 

My haunting sense of hollow sho^vs : the change, 

This truthful change in thee has kill'd it. Dear, 

Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine. 

Like yonder morning on the blind half-world; 

Approach and fear not; breathe upon my brovN> ; 

In that fine air I tremble, all the past 

Melts mist-like into this bright hour, and this 

Ts morn to more, and all the rich to-come 

Reels, as the golden Autumn woodland reels 

Athwart the smoke of burning weeds. Forgive me, 

I waste my heart in signs: let be. My bride, 

Mv wife, my life. O, we will walk this world, 

Voked in all exercise of noble end. 

And so. thro' those dark gates across the wild 

That no man knows. Indeed I love thee: come, 

Yield thyself up: my hopes and thine are one: 

Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself; 

Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me." 



CONCLUSION, 



So closed our tale, of which I give you all 
The random scheme as wildly as it rose: 
The words are mostly mine; for when we ceas'd 
There came a minute's pause, and Walter said, 
" I wish she had not yielded! " then to me, 
" What, if you drest it up poetically ! " 
So pray'd the men, the women: I gave assent: 
Yet how to bind the scatter'd scheme of seven 
Together in one sheaf ? What style could suit.'* 
The men requir'd that I should give throughout 
The sort of mock-heroic gigantesque. 
With which we banter'd little Lilia first: 
The w^omen — and perhaps they felt their power, 
For something in the ballads which they sang, 



402 THE PRINCESS: A MED LET. 

Or in their silent influence as they sat, 

Had ever seem\l to wrestle with burlesque, 

And drove us, last, to quite a solemn close — 

They hated banter, wish'd for something real, 

A gallant flgiit, a noble princess — why 

Not make her true-heroic — true-sublime? 

Or all, they said, as earnest as the close? 

Which yet with such a framework scarce could be, 

TiuMi rose a little feud betwixt the tu^o, 

I^etwixt the mockers and the realists; 

And I, betwixt them both, to please them both, 

And vet to give the story as it rose, 

I moved as in a strange diagonal, 

And maybe neither pleas'd myself nor them. 

But Lilia pleas'd me, for she took no part 
In our dispute: the sequel of the tale 
Had touch'd her; and she sat, she pluck'd the grass, 
She flung it from her, thinking: last, she iixt 
A showerv glance upon her aunt, and said, 
"You — tell us what we are" who might have told, 
For she was crammM with theories out of books. 
But that there rose a shout; the gates were closed 
At sunset, and the crowd were swarming now. 
To take their leave, about the garden rails. 

• 
So I and some went out to these: we climb'd 
The slope to Vivian-place, and turning saw 
The happy valleys, half in light, and half 
Far-shadowing from the west, a land of peace; 
Gray halls alone among the massive groves; 
Trim hamlets; here and there a rustic tower 
Half-lost in belts of hop and breadths of wheat; 
The shimmering glimpses of a stream; the seas; 
A red sail, or a white; and far beyond, 
Imagin'd more than seen, the skirts of France. 

" Look there, a ganien ! " said my college friend, 
The Tory member's elder son, " and there! 
God bless the narrow sea which keeps her off. 
And keeps our Britain, whole within herself, 
A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled — 
Some sense of dut}', something of a faith. 
Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made, 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY, 403 

Some patient force to change them when we will, 
Some civic manhood firm against the crowd — 
But yonder, whiff I there comes a sudden heat, 
The gravest citizen seems to lose his head, 
The king is scared, the soldier will not fight, 
The little lx>y begins to shoot and stab, 
A kingdom topples over with a shriek 
Like an old woman, and down rolls the world 
In mock heroics stranger than our own; 
Revolts, republics, revolutions, most 
No graver than a school-boy's barring out : 
Too comic for the solemn thing'^ they are. 
Too solemn for the comic touches in them. 
Like our wild Princess with as wise a dream 
A"^ some of theirs — God bless the narrow seas I 
I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad." 

" Have patience," I replied, " ourselves are full 
Of social wrong; and maybe wildest dreams 
Are but the needful preludes of the truth: 
For me, the genial day, the happy crowd, 
The sport half-science, fill me with a faith. 
This fine old world of ours is but a child 
Yet in the go-cart. Patience! Give it time 
To learn its limbs : there is a hand that guides." 

In such discourse we gain'd the garden rails, 
Anci there we saw Sir Walter where he stood, 
Before a tower of crimson holly-oaks. 
Among six boys, head under head, and look'd 
No little lily-handed Baronet he, 
A great broad-shoulder'd genial Englishman, 
A lord of fat prize-oxen and of sheep, 
A raiser of huge melons and of pine, 
A patron of some thirty charities, 
A pamphleteer on guano and on grain, 
A quarter-sessions chairman, abler none; 
Fair-hair'd and redder than a windy mom; 
Now shaking hands with him, now him, of those 
That stood the nearest — now address'd to speech — 
Who spoke few words and pithy, such as closed 
Welcome, farewell, and welcome for the year 
To follow : a shout rose again, and made 
The long line of the approaching rookerv swerve 



404 



THE PRINCESS: A MED LEI'. 



From the elms, and shook the branches of the deer 
From slope to slope thro' distant ferns, and rang 
Beyond the bourn of sunset; oh! a shout 
More joyful than the city-roar that hails 
Premier or king ! Why should not these great Sirs 
Give up their parks some dozen times a year 
To let the people breathe? So thrice they cried, 
I likewise, and in groups they stream'd away. 

But we went back to the Abbey, and sat on, 
So much the gathering darkness charm'd : we sat 
But spoke not, rapt in nameless reverie. 




Perchance upon the future man: the wall.i 
Blacken'd about us, bats wheel'd, and owls wh-o<^p'd. 
And gradually the powers of the night. 
That range above the region of the wind, 
Deepening the courts of twilight broke tliem up 
Thro' all the silent spaces of the worlds, 
Beyond all thought into the Heaven of Heavens. 



Last little Lilia, rising quietly 
Disrobed the glimmering statue of Sir Ral}:)h 
From those rich silks, and home well-pleas'd we went. 



IN MEMORIAM. 



407 




IN MRMORIAM, 



TRONG vSon of God, immortal Love, 
Whom we, that have not seen thy face, 
By faith, and faith alone, embrace, 

Believing- where we cannot jDrove; 

Thine are these orbs of light and shade; 

Thou madest Life in man and brute; 

Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot 
Is on the skull which thou hast made. 



Thou w^ilt not leave us in the dust : 

Thou m.adest man, he knows not why; 
He thinks he was not made to die ; 

And thou hast made him : thou art just. 

Thou seemest human and divine. 

The highest, holiest manhood, thou: . 
Our wills are ours, we know not how ; 

Our wills are ours, to make them thine. 

Our little systems have their day ; 
They have their da}- and cease to be: 
They are but broken lights of thee, 

And thou, O Lord, art more than they. 

We have but faith: we cannot know; 

For knowledge is of things we see; 

And yet we trust it comes from thee, 
A beam in darkness: let it erow. 



Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
But more of reverence in us dwell; 
That mind and soul, according well, 

May make one music as before, 



408 



IN MEMORIAM. 



But vaster. We are fools and slight; 
We mock thee when we do not fear: 
But help thy foolish ones to bear; 

Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light. 

Forgive what seem'd my sin in me; 

What seein'd mv ^vorth since I began : 
For merit lives from man to man, 

And not from man, O Lord, to thee. 

Forgive my grief for one remov'd. 
Thy creature, whom I found so fair. 
I trust he lives in thee, and there 

I find him worthier to be loved. 

Forgive these wild and wandering cries, 
Confusions of a wasted youth; 
Forgive them where they fail in truth, 

And in thy wisdom make me wise. 



IN MEMORIAM. 



A. H. H. 



OBIIT MDCCCXXXriI. 




HELD it truth, with him who sings 
To one clear harp in divers tones. 
That men may rise on stepping-stones 

Of their dead selves to higher things. 

But who shall so forecast the years. 
And find in loss a gain to match? 
Or reach a hand thro' time to catch 

The far-off interest of tears? 



IN MEMORIAM. 409 



Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd 
Let darkness keep her raven gloss : 
Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, 

To dance with death, to beat the ground, 

Than that the victor Hours should scorn 
The long result of love, and boast, 
" Behold the man that loved and lost, 

But all he was is overworn." 



II. 



Old Yew, which graspest at the stones 
That name the under-lying dead, 
Thy fibres net the dreamless head, 

Thv roots are wrapt about the bones. 

The seasons bring the flower again, 
And bring the firstling to the flock ; 
And in the dusk of thee, the clock 

Beats out the little lives of men. 

O not for thee the glow, the bloom, 
Who changest not in any gale, 
Nor branding summer suns avail 

To touch thy thousand years of gloom : 

And gazing on thee, sullen tree. 
Sick for thy stubborn hardihood, 
I seem to fail from out my blood 

And grow incorporate into thee. 

III. 

O SORROW, cruel fellowship, 

O Priestess in the vaults of Death, 
O sweet and bitter in a breath, 

What whispers from thy lying lip? 

"The stars," she whispers, " blindh^ run; 
A web is wov'n across the sk v : 
From out waste places comes a cry. 

And murmurs from the dvinof sun: 



410 IN MEMORIAM. 



" And all the phantom, Nature, stands, 
With all the music in her tone, 
A hollow echo of my own, — 

A hollow form with empty hands." 

And shall I take a thing so blind, 
Embrace her as my natural good; 
Or crush her, like a vice of blood. 

Upon the threshold of the mind ? 

IV. 

To Sleep I give my powers away; 

My will is bondsman to the dark; 

I sit within a helmless bark, 
And with my heart I muse and say: 

O heart, how fares it with thee now. 

That thou should'st fail from thy desire, 
Who scarcely darest to inquire 

" What is it makes me beat so low ? " 

Something it is which thou hast lost. 
Some pleasure from thine early years. 
Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears. 

That grief hath shaken into frost! 

Such clouds of nameless trouble cross 
All night below the darken'd eyes; 
With morning wakes the will, and cries, 

" Thou shalt not be the fool of loss." 



I SOMETIMES hold it half a sin 
To put in words the grief I feel; 
For words, like Nature, half reveal 

And half conceal the Soul within. 

But, for the unquiet heart and brain, 
A use in measur'd language lies; 
The sad mechanic exercise. 

Like dull narcotics, numbing pain. 



IN MEMO RI AM. 411 



In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er. 
Like coarsest clothes against the cold; 
But that lari^e grief which these enfold 

Is given in outline and no more. 



VI. 



One writes, that " Other friends remain," 
That " Loss is common to the race," — 
And common is the commonplace, 

And vacant chaff well meant for grain. 

That loss is common would not make 
My own less bitter, rather more : 
Too common! Never morning wore 

To evening, but some heart did break. 

O father, whereso'er thou be. 

Who pledgest now thy gallant son ; 
A shot, ere half thy draught be done. 

Hath still'd the life that beat from thee. 

O mother, praying God will save 

Thy sailor, — while thy head is bow'd, 
His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud 

Drops in his vast and wandering grave. 

Ye know no more than I who wrought 
At that last hour to please him well; 
Who mused on all I had to tell. 

And something written, something thought; 

Expecting still his advent home; 
And ever met him on his way 
With wishes, thinking, here to-day. 

Or here to-morrow will he come. 

O somewhere, meek unconscious dove, 
That sittest ranging golden hair; 
And glad to find thyself so fair. 

Poor child, that waitest for thy love! 



412 IN MEMORIAM, 



For now her father's chimney glows 

In expectation of a guest; 

And thinking " This will please him best,' 
She takes a ribbon or a rose; 

For he will see them on to-night; 

And with the thought, her color burns; 

And, having left the glass, she turns 
Once more to set a ringlet right; 

And, even when she turn'd, the curse 
Had fallen, and her future lord 
Was drown'd in passing thro' the ford, 

Or kill'd in falling from his horse. 

O what to her shall be the end? 

And what to me remains of good? 

To her, perpetual maidenhood, 
And unto me no second friend. 



VII. 



Dark house, by which once more I stand 
Here in the long imlovely street, 
Doors, where my heart was used to beat 

So quickly, waiting for a hand, 

A hand that can be clasp'd no more, — 
Behold me, for I cannot sleep. 
And like a guilty thing I creep 

At earliest morning to the door. 

He is not here; but far away 
The noise of life begins again. 
And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain 

On the bald street breaks the blank day. 

VIII. 

A HAPPY lover who has come 

To look on her that loves him well. 
Who 'lights and rings the gateway bell, 

And learns her gone and far from home; 



IN MEM OR I AM. 413 



He saddens, all the magic light 

Dies cfF at once from bower and hall, 
And all the place is dark, and all 

The chambers emptied of delight; 

So find I every pleasant spot 

In which we two were wont to meet. 
The field, the chamber, and the street, 

For all is dark where thou ai:t not. 

Yet as that other, wandering there 
In those deserted walks, may find 
A flower beat with rain and wind, 

Which once she foster'd up with care; 

So seems it in my deep regret, 

my forsaken heart, with thee 
And this poor flower of poes}- 

Which little cared for fades not yet. 

But since it pleas'd a vanish'd eye, 

1 go to plant it on his tomb. 
That if it can it there may bloom, 

Or dying, there at least may die. 



IX. 



Fair sliip, that from the Italian shore 
Sailest the placid ocean-plains 
With my lost Arthur's loved remains. 

Spread thy full wings, and waft him o'er. 

So draw him home to those that mourn 
In vain; a favorable speed 
Ruffle thy mirror'd mast, and lead 

Thro' prosperous floods his holy urn. 

All night no ruder air perplex 

Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright 
As our pure love, thro' early light 

Shall glimmer on the dewy decks. 



414 IN MEMORIAM. 



Sphere all your lights around, above: 
Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow^; 
Sleep, gentle w^inds, as he sleeps now, 

My friend, the brother of m}^ love; 

My Arthur, whom I shall not see 
Till all my widow'd race be run; 
Dear as the mother to the son. 

More than my brothers are to me. 



1 HEAR the noise about thy keel; 

I hear the bell struck in the night; 

I see the cabin-window bright; 
I see the sailor at the wheel. 

Thou brmgest the sailor to his wife, 
And travell'd men from foreign lands; 
And letters unto trembling hands; 

And, thy dark freight, a vanish'd life. 

So bring him: we have idle dreams: 
This look of quiet flatters thus 
Our home-bred fancies: O to us, 

The fools of habit, sweeter seems 

To rest beneath the clover sod, 

That takes the sunshine and the rains, 
Or where the kneeling hamlet drains 

The chalice of the grapes of God; 

Than if with thee the roaring wells 
Should gulf him fathom deep in brine ; 
And hands so often clasp'd in mine 

Should toss with tangle and with shells. 



XI. 



Calm is the morn without a sound. 
Calm as to suit a calmer grief, 
And only thro' the faded leaf 

The chestnut pattering to the ground: 



lA^ MEMORIAM. ' .415 



Calm and deep peace on this high wold 
And on these dews that drench the furze, 
And all the silvery gossamers 

That twinkle into green and gold: 

Calm and still light on yon great plain 
That sweeps with all its autumn bowers, 
And crowded farms and lessening towers, 

To mingle with the bounding main; 

Calm and deep peace in this wide air. 
These leaves that redden to the fall; 
And in my heart, if calm at all, 

If an}^ calm, a calm despair: 

Calm on the seas, and silver sleep, 

And weaves that sway themselves in rest, 
And dead calm in that noble breast 

Which heaves but with the heaving deep. 



XII. 

Lo, AS a dove when up she springs 
To bear thro' Heaven a tale of woe. 
Some dolorous message knit below 

The wild pulsation of her wings; 

Like her I go; I cannot stay: 
I leave this mortal ark behind, 
A weight of nerves without a mind. 

And leave the cliffs, and haste away 

O'er ocean-mirrors rounded large, 

And reach the glow of southern skies. 
And see the sails at a distance rise. 

And linger weeping on the marge, ' 

And saying, " Comes he thus, my friend? 
Is this the end of all my care?" 
And circle moaning in the air: 

*' Is this the end? Is this the end? " 



416 AY MEMORIAM. 



And forward dart again, and play 
About the pro\v, and back return 
To where the body sits, and learn, 

That I have been an hour away. 



XIII. 



Tears of the widower, when he sees 
A late-lost form tliat sleep reveal^. 
And moves his doubtful arms, and feels 

Her place is empty, fall like these; 

Which Aveep a loss forever new, 

A void where heart on heart repos'd; 

And, where warm hands have prest and clos'd. 

Silence, till I be silent too. 

Which weep the comrade of my choice 

An awful thought, a life remov'd. 

The human-hearted man I loved, 
A Spirit, not a breathing voice. 

Come Time, and teach me, many years, 

I dg not suffer in a dream ; 

For now so strange do these things seem. 
Mine eyes have leisure for their tears; 

My fancies time to rise on wing. 

And glance about the approaching sails, 
As tho' they brought but merchants' bales. 

And not the burthen that thev brin":. 



XIV 



If one should bring me this report, 

That thou hadst touch' d the land to-day. 
And I went down unto the quay, 

And found thee lying in the port; 

And standing, muffled round with woe. 
Should see thy passengers in rank 
Come stepping lightly down the phmk, 

And beckoning unto those they know ; 



IN MEMORIAM. 417 



And if along with these should come 
The man I held as half divine; 
Should strike a sudden hand in mine, 

And ask a thousand things of home; 

And I should tell him all my pain, 

And how my life had droop'd of late, 
And he should sorrow o'er m}- state 

And marvel what possessed my brani; 

And I perceiv'd no touch of change, 
No hint of death in all his ffame, 
But found him all in all the same, 

I should not feel it to be strange. 

XV. 

To-night the winds begin to rise 

And roar from yonder dropping day: 
The last red leaf is ^vhirl'd away. 

The rooks are blown about the skies; 

The forest crack'd,the waters curl'd. 
The cattle huddled on the lea; 
And wildly dash'd on tower and tree 

The sunbeam strikes along the world: 

And but for fancies, which aver 
That all thy motions gently pass 
Athwart a plane of molten glass, 

I scarce could brook the strain and stir 



That makes the barren branches loud; 
And but for fear it is not so. 
The wild unrest that lives in woe 

Would dote and pore on yonder cloud 

That rises upward always higher. 
And onward drags a laboring breast, 
And topples round the dreary west. 

A looming bastion fring'd with fire. 



27 



418 IN MEMORIAM. 



XVI. 

What words are these have fall'n from me? 

Can calm despair and wild unrest 

Be tenants of a single breast, 
Or sorrow such a changeling be? 

Or doth she only seem to take 

The touch of change in calm or storm; 
But knows no more of transient form 

In her deep self, than some dead lake 

That holds the shadow of a lark 
Hung in the shadow of a heaven? 
Or has the shock, so harshly given, 

Confus'd me like the unhappy bark 

That strikes by night a craggy shelf, 
And staggers blindly ere she sink ? 
And stunn'd me from my power to think 

And all my knowledge of myself; 

And made me that delirious man 
Whose fancy fuses old and new, 
And flashes into false and true, 

And mingles all without a plan? 

XVII. 

Thou comest, much wept for: such a breeze 
Compeird thy canvas, and my prayer 
Was as the whisper of an air 

To breathe thee over lonely seas. 

For I in spirit saw thee move 

Thro' circles of the bounding sky. 
Week after week: the days go by: 

Come quick, thou bringest ail I love. 

Henceforth, wherever thou may'st roam, 
My blessing, like a line of light. 
Is on the waters day and night. 

And like a beacon g-uards thee home. 



IN MEMORIAM. 419 



So may whatever tempest mars 
Mid-ocean spare thee, sacred bark; 
And bahny drops in summer dark 

Slide from the bosom of the stars. 

So kind an office hath been done, 

Such precious rehcs brought by thee; 
The dust of him I shall not see 

Till all my widow'd race be run. 

XVIII. 

'Tis well; 'tis something; we may stand 
Where he in English earth is laid, 
And from his ashes may be made 

The violet of his native land. 

'Tis little; but it looks in truth 
As if the quiet bones were blest 
Among familiar names to rest 

And in the places of his youth. 

Come then, pure hands, and bear the head 
That sleeps or wears the mask of sleep, 
And come, whatever lo\es to weep, 

And hear the ritual of the dead. 

Ah yet, ev'n yet, if this might be, 

I, falling on his faithful heart, 

Would breathing through his lips impart 
The life that almost dies in me; 

That dies not, but endures with pain. 
And slowly forms the firmer mind. 
Treasuring the look it cannot find, 

The words that are not heard again. 



The Danube to the Severn gave 

The darken'cl heart that beat no more; 
They laid him by the pleasant shore. 

And in the hearino- of the wave. 



420 



IN MEMORIAM. 



There twice a day the Severn fills; 
The salt sea-water passes by, 
And hushes half the babbling Wye, 

And makes a silence in the hills. 




The Wye is hush'd nor moved along, 
And hush'd by deepest grief of all. 
When fiU'd with tears that cannot tall, 

I brim with sorrow drowning song. 

The tide flows down, the wave again 
Is vocal in its wooded walls; 
My deeper anguish also falls 

And I can speak a little then. . 

XX. 



The lesser griefs that may be said, 
That breathe a thousand tender vows. 
Are but as servants in a house 

Where lies the master newly dead; 



IN MEMORIAM. 421 



Who speak their feeling as it is, 

And weep the fulness from the mind : 
" It will be hard," they say, " to find 

Another service such as this." 

My lighter moods are like to these, 
That out of words a comfort win; 
But there are other griefs within, 

And tears that at their fountain freeze: 

For by the hearth the children sit 
Cold in that atmosphere of Death, 
And scarce endure to draw the breath, 

Or like to noiseless phantoms flit: 

But open converse is there none. 
So much the vital spirits sink 
To see the vacant chair, and think, 

" How good! how kind! and he is gone." 

XXI. 

I SING to him that rests below. 

And, since the grasses round me wave, 
I take the grasses of the grave. 

And make them pipes whereon to blow. 

The traveller hears me now and then. 
And sometimes harshly will he speak: 
" This fellow would make weakness weak, 

And melt the waxen hearts of men." 

Another answers, " Let him be. 
He loves to make parade of pain. 
That with his piping he may gain 

The praise that comes to constancy." 

A third is wroth, " Is this an hour 
For private sorrow's barren song. 
When more and more the people throng 

The chairs and thrones of civil power? 



422 IN MEMORIAM. 



" A time to sicken and to swoon, 

When Science reaches forth her arms 
To feel from world to world, and charms 

Her secret from the latest moon? " 

Behold, ye speak an idle thing: 
Ye never knew the sacred dust; 
I do but sing because I must. 

And pipe but as the linnets sing : 

And one is glad; her note is gay, 

For now her little ones have ranged; 
And one is sad ; her note is changed, 

Because her brood is stol'n awav. 



The path by which we twain did go. 
Which led by tracts that pleas'd us well, 
Thro' four sweet years arose and fell. 

From flower to flower, from snow to snow: 

And we with singing cheer'd the way. 
And crown'd with all the season lent, 
From April on to April went, 

And glad at heart from May to May: 

But where the path we walk'd began 
To slant the fifth autumnal slope. 
As we descended, following Hope, 

There sat the shadow fear'd of man ; 

Who broke our fair companionship. 
And spread his mantle dark and cold, 
And wrapt thee formless in the fold. 

And dull'd the murmur on thy lip, 

And bore thee where I could not see 
Nor follow, tho' I walk in haste. 
And think that somewhere in the waste 

The Shadow sits and waits for me. 



IN MEMORIAM. 42^ 



Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut, 

Or breaking into song by fits, 

Alone, alone, to where he sits, 
The Shadow cloak'd from head to foot. 

Who keeps the keys of all the creeds, 
I wander, often falling lame. 
And looking back to whence I came, 

Or on to where the pathway leads; 

And crying, " How changed from where it ran 
Thro' lands where not a leaf was dumb; 
But all the lavish hills would hum 

The murmur of a happy Pan: 

' When each by turns was guide to each, 
And Fancy light from Fancy caught, 
And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought 
Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech; 

" And all \ve met was fair and good. 

And all was good that Time could bring, 
And all the secret of the Spring 

Moved in the chambers of the blood: 



" And many an old philosophy 
On Argive heights divinely sang. 
And round us all the thicket rang 

To many a flute of Arcady." 

XXIV. 



And was the day of my delight 
As sure and perfect as I say? 
The very source and fount of Day 

Is dash'd with wandering isles of night. 

If all was good and fair we met. 
This earth had been the Paradise 



424 nv MEMORIAM. 



It never look'd to human eyes 
Since Adam left liis garden yet. 

And is it that the haze of grief 

ISlakes former ghuiness loom so great? 
The lowness of the present state, 

That sets the past in this relief ? 

Or that the past will always win 

A glory from its being far; 

Anil orb into the perfect star 
We saw not, ^vhen we moved therein? 

XX \. 

I KNOW that this was Life, — the track 
Whereon with equal feet we fared; 
And then, as now, the day prepared 

The daily burden for the back. 

But this it was that made me mo\ o 

As light as carrier-birds in air; 

I lov'd the weight I had to bear. 
Because I needed help of Love; 

Nor could I weary, heart or limb, 

When mighty Love would cleave in twain 

The lading of a single pain. 
And part it, giving half to him. 

XXVI. 

Still onwanl winds the drear\ wav; 
I with it; for I long to prove 
No lapse of moons can canker Loxe, 

AVhate\'er fickle tongues may say. 

And if that eye which vs^atches guilt 
And goodness, and hath power to see 
Within the green the moulder'd tree, 

And towers f:ill'n ns soon as built, — 




"And one is sad; her note is changed, 
Because her brood is stol'n away." 

See fage 422. 



IN MEMORIAM. 425 



O, if indeed that eye foresee 
Or see (in Him is no before) 
In more of life true life no more 

And Love the indifference to be, 

Then might I find, ere yet the morn 
Breaks hither over Indian seas, 
That Shadow waiting with the keys, 

To shroud me from my proper scorn. 

XXVII. 

I ENVY not in any moods 

The captive void of noble rage. 
The linnet born within the cage. 

That never knew the summer woods: 

I envy not the beast that takes 
His license in the field of time, 
Unfetter'd by the sense of crime. 

To whom a conscience never wakes: 

Nor, what may count itself as blest. 
The heart that never plighted troth. 
But stagnates in the weeds of sloth; 

Nor any want-begotten rest. 

I hold it true, whate'er befall; 

I feel it, when I sorrow most; 

'Tis better to have loved and lost 
Than never to have loved at all. 

XXVIII. 

The time draws near the birth of Christ; 

The moon is hid; the night is still; 

The Christmas bells from hill to hill 
Answer each other in the mist. 



Four voices of four hamlets round. 

From far and near, on mead and moor, 
Swell out and fail, as if a door 

Were shut between me and the sound: 



426 IN MEMORIAM. 



Each voice four changes on the wind, 
That now dilate, and now decrease, 
Peace and good-will, good-will and peace, 

Peace and good-will, to all mankind. 

This year I slept and woke with pain, 
I almost wish'd no more to wake. 
And that my hold on life would break 

Before I heard those bells again. 

But the}^ my troubled spirit rule, 

For they controll'd me when a boy; 
They bring me sorrow touch'd wdth joy, 

The merry, merry bells of Yule. 

XXIX. 

With such compelling cause to grieve 
As daily vexes household peace. 
And chains regret to his decease, 

How dare we keep our Christmas-eve; 

Which brings no more a welcome guest 
To enrich the threshold of the night 
With shower'd largess of delight. 

In dance and song and game and jest. 

Yet go, and while the holly-boughs 
Entwine the cold baptismal font. 
Make one wreath more for Use and Wont 

That guard the portals of the house; 

Old sister of a day gone by. 

Gray nurses, loving nothing new; 
Why shouki they miss their yearly due 

Before their time? They too will die. 



With trembling fingers did we weave 
The holly round the Christmas hearth; 
A rainy cloud possess'd the earth. 

And sadly fell on Christmas-eve. 



IN MEMORIAM. 427 



At our old pastimes in the hall 

We gamboll'd, making- vain pretence 
Of gladness, with an awful sense • 

Of one mute Shadow watching all. 

We paused : the winds were in the beech ; 

We heard them §weep the winter land; 

And in a circle hand-in-hand 
Sat silent, looking each at each. 

Then echo-like our voices rang; 

We sang tho' every eye was dim, 

A merry song Ave sang with him 
Last year: impetuously we sang: 

We ceased : a gentler feeling crept 
Upon us: surely rest is meet: 
." They rest," w^e said, " their sleep is sweet,'^ 
And silence follow 'd, and we wept. 

Our voices took a higher range ; 

Once more we sang: " They do not die 

Nor lose their mortal sympathy, 
Nor change to us, although they change; 

"Rapt from the fickle and the frail 
With gather'd power, yet the same 
Pierces the keen seraphic flame 

From orb to. orb, from veil to veil." 

Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn. 

Draw forth the cheerful day from night: 
O Father, touch the east, and light 

The light that shone when Hope was born. 



XXXI. 

When Lazarus left his charnel-cave. 
And home to Mary's house return'd, 
Was this demanded, — if he yearn'd 

To hear her weeping by his grave? 



428 IN MEMORIAM. 



"Where wert thou, brother, those four days?" 

There hves no record of reply, 

Which telling what it is to die 
Had surely added praise to praise. 

From every house the neighbors met, 

The streets were fiU'd with joyful sound, 
A solemn gladness even crown'd 

The purple brows of Olivet. 

Behold a man rais'd up b}^ Christ! 

The rest remaineth unreveal'd; 

He told it not; or something seal'd 
The lips of that Evangelist. 

XXXII. 

Her e3'es are homes of silent prayer, 
Nor other thought her mind admits 
But, he was dead, and there he sits. 

And he that brought him back is there. 

Then one deep love doth supersede 
All other, when her ardent gaze 
Roves from the living brother's face, 

And rests upon the Life indeed. 

All subtle thought, all curious fears, 
Borne down by gladness so complete. 
She bows, she bathes the Saviour's feet 

With costly spikenard and with tears. 

Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers, 
Whose loves in higher love endure; 
What souls possess themselves so pure. 

Or is there blessedness like theirs.^ 

XXXIII. 

O THOU that after toil and storm 

May'st seem to have reach'd a purer air, 
Whose faith has centre everywhere. 

Nor cares to fix itself to form, 



2N MBMORIAM. 429 



Leave thou thy sister, when she prays, 
Her early Heaven, her happy view^s; 
Nor thou with shadow'd hint confuse 

A Hfe that leads melodious days. 

Her faith thro' form is pure as thine. 
Her hands are quickei- unto good : 
Oh ! sacred be the flesh and blood 

To which she links a truth divine! 

See thou, that countest reason ripe 
In holding by the law within, 
Thou fail not in a world of sin. 

And ev'n for want of such a type. 

XXXIV. 

My own dim life should teach me this, 
That life shall live forevermore. 
Else earth is darkness at the core, 

And dust and ashes all that is : 

This round of green, this orb of flame. 
Fantastic beauty; such as lurks 
In some wild Poet, when he works 

Without a conscience or an aim. 

What then were God to such as I? 

'Twere hardly worth my while to choose 

Of things all mortal, or to use 
A little patience ere I die; 

'Twere best at once to sink to peace. 
Like birds the charming serpent draws. 
To drop head-foremost in the jaws 

Of vacant darkness, and to cease. 

XXXV. 

Yet if some voice that man could trust 
Should murmur from the narrow house, 
"The cheeks drop in; the body bows; 

Man dies: nor is there hope in dust." 



430 



IN MEMORIAM. 



Might I not say, " Yet even here, 
But for one hour, O Love, I strive 
To keep so sweet a thing ahve? " 

But I should turn mine ears and hear 




The moanings of the homeless sea, 

The sound of streams that swift or slov^- 
Draw dow^n y^onian hills, and sow 

The dust of continents to be ; 

And Love would answer with a sigh, 
" The sound of that forgetful shore 
Will change my sweetness more and more. 

Half-dead to know that I shall die," 

O me! what profits it to put 

An idle case? If Death were seen 
At first as Death, Love had not been. 

Or been in narrowest working shut. 



Mere fellowship of sluggish moods. 

Or in his coarsest Satyr-shape 

Had bruis'd the berb and crush'd the grape, 
And bask'd and batten'd in the woods. 



IN MEMORIAM. 431 



XXXVI. 

Tho' truths in manhood darkly join, 
Deep-seated in our mystic frame, 
We yield all blessing to the name * 

Of Him that made them current coin; 

For Wisdom dealt with mortal powers, 
Where Truth in closest w^ords shall fail, 
When Truth embodied in a tale 

Shall enter in at lowly doors. 

And so the Word had breath, and wrought 
With human hands the creed of creeds 
In loveliness of perfect deeds, 

More strong than all poetic thought; 

Which he may read that binds the sheaf. 
Or builds the house, or digs the grave. 
And those wild eyes that watch the wave 

In roarino^s round the coral reef. 



XXXVII. 

Urania speaks with darken'd brow; 

Thou pratest here where thou art least; 

This faith has many a purer priest, 
And many an abler voice than thou. 

" Go down beside thv native rill. 
On thy Parnassus set thy feet. 
And hear thy laurel whisper sweet 

About the ledges of the hill." 

And my jMelpomene replies, 

A touch of shame upon her cheek : 
" I am not worthy ev'n to speak 

Of thy prevailing mysteries ; 

*' For I am but an earthly Muse, 
And owninof but a little art 



432 IN MEMORIAM. 



To lull with song- an aching heart, 
And render human love his dues; 

" But brooding on the dear one dead, 
And all he said of things divine, 
(And dear to me as sacred wine 

To dying lips is all he said), 

" I murmur'd, as I came along. 

Of comfort clasp'd in truth reveal'd; 
And loiter'd in the Master's field. 

And darken'd sanctities with song."" 

XXXVIII. 

With w^eary steps I loiter on, 
Tho' always under alter'd skies 
The purple from the distance dies, 

My prospect and horizon gone. 

No joy the blowing season gives, 
The herald melodies of spring, 
But in the songs I love to sing 

A doubtful gleam of solace lives. 

If any care for what is here 
Survive in spirits render'd free, 
Then are these songs I sino^ of thee 

Not all ungrateful to thine ear. 

XXXIX. 

Old warder of these buried bones. 

And answering now my random stroke 
With fruitful cloud and living smoke. 

Dark yew, that graspest at the stones 

And dippest toward the dreamless head, 
To thee, too, comes the golden hour 
When flower is feeling after flower; 

But Sorrow — fixt upon the dead, 



IN MEMORIAM. 433 



And darkening the dark graves of men, — 
What whisper'd from her lying lips? 
Thy gloom is kindled at the tips, 

And passes into gloom again. 



XL. 



Could we forget the widow'd hour, 
And look on Spirits breathed away, 
As on a maiden in the day 

When first she wears her orange-flower! 

When crown'd with blessing she doth rise 
To take her latest leave of home. 
And hopes and light regrets that come 

Make April of her tender eyes; 

And doubtful joys the father move. 
And tears are on the mother's face, 
As parting with a long embrace 

She enters other realms of love; 

Her office there to rear, to teach, 
Becoming, as is meet and fit, 
A link among the days, to knit 

The generations each with each; 

And, doubtless, unto thee is given 
A hfe that bears immortal fruit 
In such great offices as suit 

The full-grown energies of heaven. 

Ay me, the difference I discern ! 
How often shall her old fireside 
Be cheer'd with tidings of the bride, 

How often she herself return, 

And tell them all they would have told, 
And bring her babe, and make her boast 
Till even those that miss'd her most 

Shall count new things as dear as old : 



28 



434 IN MEMORIAM. 



But thou and 1 have shaken hands, 
Till growing winters lay me low; 
My paths are in the fields I know, 

And thine in undiscover'd lands. 



Thy spirit ere our fatal loss 

Did ever rise from high to higher; 
As mounts the heavenward altar-fire, 

As flies the lighter through the gross. 

But thou art turn'd to something strange, 
And I have lost the links that hound 
Thy changes; here upon the ground. 

No more partaker of thy change. 

Deep folly! yet that this could be, — 

That I could wing mv will with might 
To leap the grades of life and light, 

And flash at once, my friend, to thee: 

For tho' my nature rarely yields 

To that vague fear imj^lied in death; 
Nor shudders at the gulfs beneath. 

The hoAvlino;-s from forg-otten fields: 

Yet oft when sundown skirts the moor 

An inner trouble I behold, 

A spectral doubt which makes me cold, 
That I shall be thy mate no more, 

Tho' following w^ith an upward mind 
The wonders that have come to thee, 
Thro' all the secular to-be. 

But evermore a life behind. 

And so may place retain us still, 
And he the much-belov'd again, 
A lord of large experience, train 

To riper growth the mind and will: 



IN MEMORIAM. 435 



And what delights can equal those 
That stir the spirit's inner deeps, 
When one that loves, but knows not, reaps 

A truth from one that loves and knows? 



If Sleep and Death be truly one, 
And every spirit's folded bloom 
Thro' all its intervital gloom 

In some long trance should slumber on; 

Unconscious of the sliding hour, 

Bare of the body, might it last. 

And silent traces of the past 
Be all the color of the flower: 

So then were nothing lost to man; 

So that still garden of the souls 

In many a figur'd leaf enrolls 
The total world since life began; 

And love will last as pure and whole 
As when he loved me here in Time, 
And at the spiritual prime 

Rewaken with the dawning soul. 

XLIV. 

How fares it with the happy dead? 

For here the man is more and more ; 

But he forgets the days before 
God shut the doorways of his head. 

The days have vanish'd, tone and tint. 
And yet perhaps the hoarding sense 
Gives out at times (he knows not w^hence) 

A little flash, a mystic hint; 

And in the long harmonious years 
(If Death so taste Lethean springs) 
May some dim touch of earthly things 

Surprise thee ranging with thy peers. 



436 IN MEMORIAM. 



If such a dreamy touch should fall, 
O turn thee round, resolve the doubt; 
My guardian angel will speak out 

In that high place, and tell thee all. 



XLV. 



The baby new to earth and sky, 
What time his tender palm is prest 
Against the circle of the breast, 

Has never thought that " this is I: " 



"to' 



But as he grows he gathers much, 

And learns the use of " I," and " me," 
And finds." I am not what I see. 

And other than the things I touch." 

So rounds he to a separate mind 

From whence clear memory may begin, 
As thro' the frame that binds him in 

His isolation grows defined. 

This use may lie in blood and breath, 
Which else were fruitless of their due. 
Had man to learn himself anew 

Beyond the second birth of Death. 

XLVI. 

We ranging down the lower track, 

The path we came by, thorn and flower, 
Is shadow'd by the growmg hour. 

Lest life should fail in looking back. 

So be it: there no shade can last 

In that deep dawn behind the tomb. 

But clear from marge to marge shall bloom 

The eternal landscape of the past; 

A lifelong tract of time reveal'd; 

The fruitful hours of still increase; 

Days order'd in a wealthy peace. 
And those five years its richest field. 



IN MEMORIAM. 437 



Oh Love, thy province were not large, 
A bounded field, nor stretching far; 
Look also, Love, a brooding star, 

A rosy warmth from marge to marge. 



XLVII. 



That each, who seems a separate whole, 
Should move his rounds, and fusing all 
The skirts of self again, should ftill 

Remerging in the general Soul, 



Is faith as vague as all unsweet: 
Eternal form shall still divide 
The eternal soul from all beside; 

And I shall know him when we meet: 



And we shall sit at endless feast. 
Enjoying each the other's good: 
What vaster dream can hit the inood 

Of love on earth? He seeks at least 

Upon the last and sharpest height. 
Before the spirits fade away. 
Some landing-place, to clasp and say, 

" Farewell! We lose ourselves in light." 

XLVIII. 

If these brief lays, of Sorrow born, 
Were taken to be such as closed 
Grave doubts and answers here propos'd. 

Then these were such as men might scorn : 

Her care is not to part and prove; 

She takes, when harsher inoods remit, 
What slender shade of doubt may flit. 

And makes it vassal unto love: 

And hence, indeed, she sports with words. 
But better serves a wholesome law. 
And holds it sin and shame to draw 

The deepest measure from the chords: 



438 JN MEMORIAM. 



Nor dare she trust a larger lay, 
But rather loosens from the lip 
Short swallow-flights of song, that dip 

Their wings in tears, and skim away. 

XLIX. 

From art, from nature, from the schools. 
Let random influences glance, 
Like light in many a shiverVl lance 

That breaks about the dappled pools: 

The lightest wave of thought shall lisp. 
The fancy's tenderest eddy wreathe, 
The slio-htest air of songr shall breathe 

To make the sullen surface crisp. 

And look thy way, and go thy way. 

But blame not thou the winds that make 
The seeming-wanton ripple break. 

The tender-pencil'd shadow play. 

Beneath all fancied hopes and fears, 
Av me! the sorrow deepens down. 
Whose muffled motions blindly drown 

The bases of my life in tears. 



Be near me when my light is low, 

When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick 
And tingle; and the heart is sick, 

And all the wheels of Being slow. 

Be near me when the sensuous frame 
Is rack'd with pangs that conquer trust: 
And Time, a maniac scattering dust. 

And Life, a Fur}^ slinging flame. 

Be near me when my faith is dry. 
And men the flies of latter spring. 
That lay their eggs, and sting and sing, 
And weave their petty cells and die. 



IN MEMORIAM. 489 



Be near me when I fade away, 

To point the term of human strife, 
And on the low dark verge of hfe 

The twihght of eternal day. 



LI. 



Do WE indeed desire the dead 

Should still be near us at our side? 
Is there no baseness we would hide? 

No inner vileness that \ve dread? 

Should he for whose ;ipplause I strove, 
I had such reverence for his blame, 
'See with clear eye'some hidden shame, 
And I be lessened in his love? 

I w^rong the grave with fears untrue : 

Shall Love be blamed for want of faith? 
There must be wisdom with great Death 

The dead shall look me thro' and thro'. 

Be near us when we climb or fall: 

Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours 
With larger other eyes than ours, 

To make allowance for us all. 



LII. 



I CANNOT love thee as I ought. 

For love reflects the thing belov'd : 
My words are only words, and moved 

Upon the topmost froth of thought. 

" Yet blame not thou thy plaintive song," 
The Spirit of true love replied ; 
" Thou canst not move me from thy side. 

Nor human frailty do me wrong. 

" What keeps a spirit wholly true 

To that ideal which he bears? 

What record? not the sinless years 
That breathed beneath the Syrian blue: 



440 IN MEMORIAM. 



" So fret not, like an idle girl, 

That life is dash'd "with flecks of sin. 
Abide: thy wreath is gather'd in, 

When Time hath sunder'd shell from pearl." 

LIII. 

How many a father have I seen, 
A sober man among his boys, 
Whose youth was full of foolish noise, 

Who wears his manhood hale and green : 

And dare we to this fancy give, 

That had the wild-oat not been sown. 
The soil, left barren, scarce had grown 

The grain by which a man may live? 

O, if we held the doctrine sound 
For life outliving heats of youth, 
Yet who would preach it as a truth 

To those that eddy round and round? 

Hold thou the good: define it well: 
For fear divine Philosophy 
Should push beyond her mark, and be 

Procuress to the Lords of Hell. 

LIV. 

O YET we trust that somehow good 
Will be the final goal of ill. 
To pangs of nature, sins of will. 

Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; 

That nothing walks with aimless feet; 

That not one life shall be destroy'd, 

Or cast as rubbish to the void. 
When God hath made the pile complete; 

That not a v^orm is cloven in vain; 

That not a moth v^dth vain desire 

Is shrivell'd in a fruitless fire. 
Or but subserves another's gain. 



I 




I. 



IN MEMORIAM. 441 



Behold, we know not anything; 
I can but trust that good shall fall 
At last — far off — at last, to all, 

And every winter change to sj^ring. 

So runs my dream: but what am I? 
An infant crying in the night: 
An infant crying for the light: 

And with no language but a cry. 



LV. 



The wish, that of the living whole 
No life may fail beyond the grave. 
Derives it not from what we have 

The likest God within the soul ? 

Are God and Nature then at strife, 
That Nature lends such evil dreams? 
So careful of the type she seems. 

So careless of the single life; 

That I, considering everywhere 
Her secret meaning in her deeds. 
And finding that of fifty seeds 

She often brings but one to bear, 

I falter where I firmly trod. 

And fallinof with mv weicrht of cares 
Upon the great world's altar-stairs 

That slope thro' darkness up to God, 

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, 
And gather dust and chaflf, and call 
To what I feel is Lord of all. 

And faintly trust the larger hope. 



" So CAREFUL of the type? " but no. 
From scarped cliff and quarried stone 
She cries, " A thousand types are gone 

I care for nothing, all shall go. 



442 IN MEMORIAM. 



"Thou makest thine appeal to me: 
I bring to life, I bring to death: 
The spirit does but mean the breath: 

I kno^v no more.'' And he, shall he, 

Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair. 
Such splendid purpose in his eyes, 
Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies, 

Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, 

Who trusted God was love indeed, 
And love Creation's final law, — 
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw 

With ravin, shriek'd against his creed, — 

Who loved, who sufFer'd countless ills. 
Who battled for the True, the Just, 
Be blown about the desert dust, 

Or seal'd within the iron hills? 

No more? A monster then, a dream, 
A discord. Dragons of the prime. 
That tear each other in their slime. 

Were mellow music match'd with him. 

O life as futile, then, as frail! 

O for thy voice to soothe and bless ! 

What hope of answer, or redress? 
Behind the veil, behind the veil. 

LVII. 



Peace; come away: the song of woe 

Is after all an earthly song: 

Peace; come away: we do him wrong 
To sing so wildly : let us go. 

Come; let us go: your cheeks are pale; 
But half my life I leave behind: 
Methinks my friend is richly shrined 

But I shall pass ; my work will fail. 



IN MEMORIAM. 443 



Yet in these ears, till hearing dies 
One set slow bell will seem to toll 
The passing of the sweetest soul 

That ever look'd with human eyes. 

I hear it now, and o'er and o'er, 

Eternal greetings to the dead; 

And " Ave, Ave, Ave," said, 
" Adieu, adieu," forevermore. 

LVIII. 

In those sad words I took farewell: 

Like echoes in sepulchral halls. 

As drop by drop the water fills 
In vaults and catacombs they fell; 

And, falling, idly broke the peace 
Of hearts that beat from day to day. 
Half-conscious of their dying clay. 

And those cold crypts where they shall cease. 

The high Muse answer'd : " Wherefore grieve 
Thy brethren with a fruitless tear? 
Abide a little longer here. 

And thou shalt take n. nobler leave." 



LIX. 

O Sorrow, wilt thou live with me, 
No casual mistress, but a w^ife, 
My bosom friend and half of life; 

As I confess it needs must be; 

O Sorrow, wilt thou rule my blood. 
Be sometimes lovely like a bride. 
And put thy harsher moods nside. 

If thou wilt have me wise and good. 

]\Iy centred passion cannot move. 
Nor will it lessen from to-day; 
But I'll have leave at times to play 

As with the creature of my love; ' 



444 IN MEMORIAM. 



And set thee forth, for thou art mine, 
With so much hope for years to come. 
That, howsoe'er I know thee, some 

Could hardly tell what name were thine. 



LX. 



He past: a soul of nobler tone: 
My spirit loved and loves him yet, 
Like some poor girl whose heart is set 

On one whose rank exceeds her own. 

He mixing with his proper sphere, 
She finds the baseness of her lot. 
Half jealous of she knows not \vhat, 

And envying all that meet him there. 

The little village looks forlorn: 
She sighs amid her narrow days. 
Moving about the household ways. 

In that dark house where slie was born. 



The foolish neighbors come and go, 
And tease her till the day draws by : 
At night she weeps, " How vain am I! 

How should he love a thing so low ? " 



LXI. 

If, in thy second state sublime. 

Thy ransom'd reason change leplies 
With all the circle of the wise, 

The perfect flower of human time ; 

And if thou cast thine eyes below, 
How dimly character'd and slight. 
How dwarf 'd a draught of cold and night, 

How blanch'd with darkness must I grow ! 

Yet turn thee to the doubtful shore. 

Where thy first form was made a man; 
I loved thee. Spirit, and love, nor can 

The soul of Shakespeare love thee more. 



IN MEMORIAM. 445 



LXII. 

Tiio' if an eye that's downward cast 

Could make thee somewhat blench or fail, 
Then be my love an idle tale, 

And fading legend of the past; 

And thou, as one that once declined, 
When he was little more than boy, 
On some unworthy heart with joy, 

But lives to wed an equal mind; 

And breathes a novel world, the while 

His other passion wholly dies, 

Or in the light of deeper eyes 
Is matter for a flying smile. 

LXIII. 

Yet pit}^ for a horse o'er-driven. 

And love in which my hound has part, 
Can hang no weight upon my heart 

In its assumptions up to heaven; 

And I am so much more than these, 
As thou, perchance, art more than I, 
And yet I spare them sympathv. 

And I would set their pains at ease. 

So mayst thou watch me w^here I weep, 
As unto vaster motions bound, 
The circuits of thine orbit round 

A higher height, a deeper deep. 

LXIV. 

Dost thou look back on what hath been. 

As some divinely gifted man. 

Whose life in low estate began 
And on a simple village green ; 

Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, 
And grasps the skirts of happy chance. 



446 IN MEMORIAM. 



And breasts the blows of circumstance, 
And grapples with his evil star; 

Who makes by force his merit known, 
And lives to clutch the golden keys 
To mould a might}' state's decrees, 

And shape the whisper of the throne; 

And moving up from high to higher. 
Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope 
The pillar of a people's hope, 

The centre of a world's desire; 

Yet feels, as in a pensive dream, 

When all his active powers are still, 
A distant dearness in the hill, 

A i^ecret sweetness in the stream. 

The limit of his narrower fate. 

While yet beside its vocal springs 
He play'd at counsellors and kings. 

With one that w^as his earliest mate; 

Who ploughs with pain his native lea 
And reaps the labor of his hands, 
Or in the furrow musing stands; 

" Does my old friend remember me? " 

LXV. 

S^VEET soul, do with me as thou wilt; 

I lull a fancy trouble-tost 

With " Love's too precious to be lost, 
A little grain shall not be spilt." 

And in that solace can I sing. 

Till out of painful phases wrought 
There flutters up a happ}- thought, 

Self-balanc'd on a lightsome wing: 

Since we deserv'd the name of friends, 
And thine effect so. lives in me, 



IN MEMORIAM. ' 447 



A part of mine may live in thee, 
And move thee on to noble ends. 



LXVI. 

You thought my heart too far diseas'd; 
You wonder when my fancies play 
To find me gay among the gay, 

Like one with any trifle pleased. 

The shade by w^hich my life was crost, 
Which makes a desert in the mind, 
Has made me kindly with my kind, 

And like to him whose sight is lost; 

Whose feet are guided thro' the land. 
Whose jest among his friends is free. 
Who takes the children on his knee, 

And winds their curls about his hand: 

He plays with threads, he beats his chair 
For pastime, dreaming of the sky; 
His inner day can never die, 

His night of loss is always there. 

LXVII. 

When on my bed the moonlight falls, 
I know that in thy place of rest. 
By that broad water of the west. 

There comes a glory on the walls: 

Thy marble bright in dark appears 
As slowly steals a silver flame 
Along the letters of thy name. 

And o'er the number of thy years. 

The mystic glory swims away: 

From off my bed the moonlight dies; 
And, closing eaves of wearied eyes, 

I sleep till dusk is dipt in gray: 



448 ' AY MEM OR I AM. 



And then I know the mist is drawn 
A lucid veil from coast to coast, 
And in the dark church, like a ghost, 

Thy tablet glimmers to the dawn. 

LXVIII. 

When in the down I sink my head, 

Sleep, Death's twin-brother, times my breath; 
Sleep, Death's twin-brother, knows not Death, 

Nor can I dream of thee as dead: 

I walk as ere I walk'd forlorn. 

When all our path was fresh with dew, 
And all the bugle breezes blew 

Reveillee to the breaking morn. 

But what is this? I turn about, 
I find a trouble in thine eye, 
Which makes me sad, I know not why. 

Nor can my dream resolve the doubt: 

But ere the lark hath left the lea 

I Avake, and I discern the truth; 

It is the trouble of my youth 
That foolish sleep transfers to thee. 

LXIX. 

I dream'd there would be Spring no more, 
That Nature's ancient power was lost: 
The streets Avere black with. smoke and frost. 

They chatter'd trifles at the door: 

I wander'd from the noisy town, 

I found a wood with thorny boughs : 
I took the thorns to bind my brows, 

I wore them like a civic crown: 

I met with scoffs, I met with scorns 
From youth and babe and hoary hairs: 
They call'd me in the public squares 

The fool that wears a crown of thorns : 



JN MEMORIAM. 449 



They call'd me fool, they call'd me child: 
I found an angel of the night; 
The voice was low, the look was bright; 

He look'd upon my crown and smiled : 

He reach'd the glory of a hand. 
That seem'd to touch it into leaf: 
The voice was not the voice of grief. 

The words were hard to understand. 

LXX. 

I CANNOT see the features right. 

When on the gloom I strive to paint 
The face I know; the hues are faint 

And mix with hollow masks of night; 

Cloud-towers by ghostly masons wrought, 
A gulf that ever shuts and gapes, 
A hand that points and palled shapes 

In shadowy thoroughfares of thought; 

And crowds that stream from yawning doors. 
And shoals of pucker'd faces drive; 
Dark bulks that tumble half alive, 

And lazy lengths on boundless shores: 

Till all at once beyond the will 
I hear a v^^izard music roll, 
And thro' a lattice on the soul 

Looks thy fair face and makes it still. 

LXXI, 

Sleep, kinsman, thou to death and trance 
And madness, thou hast forged at last 
A*night-long Present of the Past 

In which we went thro' summer France. 

Hadst thou such credit with the soul ? 
Then bring an opiate trebly strong. 
Drug down the blindfold sense of wrong 

That so my pleasure may be whole; 
29 



450 



IN MRMORIAM. 



While now we talk as once we talk'd 
Of men and minds, the dust of change, 
The days that grov/ to something strange, 

In walking as of old we walk'd 




Beside the river's wooded reach, 

The fortress and the mountain ridge, 
The cataract flashing from the bridge. 

The breaker breaking on the beach. 



IN MEMORIAM. 451 



LXXII. 

RiSEST thou thus, dim dawn, again, 
And howlest, issuing out of night, 
With blasts that blow the poplar white, 

And lash with storm the streaming pane? 

Day, when my crown'd estate begun 
To pine in that reverse of doom, 
Which sicken'd every living bloom, 

And blurr'd the splendor of the sun; 

Who usherest in the dolorous hour 

With thy quick tears that make the rose 
Pull sideways, and the daisy close 

Her crimson fringes to the shower; 

Who might'st have heaved a windless flame 
Up the deep East, or, whispering, play'd 
A chequer-work of beam and shade 

Along the hills, yet looked the same. 

As wan, as chill, as wild as now; 

Day, mark'd as with some hideous crime 
When the dark hand struck down thro' time, 

And cancell'd nature's best: but thou. 

Lift as thou may'st thy burthen'd brows 

Thro' clouds that drench the morning star, 
And whirl the ungarner'd sheaf afar. 

And sow the sky with flying boughs. 

And up thy vault with roaring sound 
Climb thy thick noon, disastrous day; 
Touch thy dull goal of joyless gray, 

And hide thy shame beneath the ground. 

LXXIII. 

So MANY worlds, so much to do, 
So little done, such things to be, 
How know I what had need of thee, 

For thou wert strong as thou wert true? 



452 2N MEMORIAM. 



The fame is quench'd that I foresaw, 

The head hath miss'd an earthly wreath; 
I curse not nature, no, nor death; 

For nothing is that errs from law. 

We pass; the path that each man trod 
Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds: 
What fame is left for human deeds 

In endless age? It rests with God. 

hollow wraith of dying fame. 
Fade wholly, while the soul exults. 
And self-infolds the large results 

Of force that \vould have forged a name. 

LXXIV. 

As SOMETIMES in a dead man's face, 
To those that watch it more and more, 
A likeness, hardly seen before. 

Comes out — to some one of his race: 

vSo, dearest, now thy brows are cold, 
I see thee what thou art, and know 
Thy likeness to the wise below. 

Thy kindred with the great of old. 

But there is more than I can see. 
And what I see I leave unsaid. 
Nor speak it, knowing Death has made 

His darkness beautiful with thee. 

LXXV. 

1 LEAVE thy praises unexpressed 

In verse that brings myself relief, 
And by the measure of my grief 
I leave thy greatness to be guess'd : 

What practice howso'er expert 
In fitting aptest words to things, 
Or voice the richest-toned that sings, 

Hath power to give thee as thou wert? 



IN MEMORIAM. 453 



I care not in these fading days 

To raise a cry that lasts not long, 

And round thee with the breeze of song 

To stir a little dust of praise. 

Thy leaf has perish'd in the green, 

And, while we breathe beneath the sun. 
The world which credits what is done 

Is cold to all that might have been. 

So here shall silence guard thy fame; 
But somewhere, out of human view, 
Whate'er thy hands are set to do 

Is wrought with tumult of acclaim. 

LXXVI. 

Take wings of fancy, and ascend, 
And in a moment set thy face 
Where all the starry heavens of space 

Are sharpen'd to a needle's end; 

Take wings of foresight; lighten thro' 
The secular abyss to come. 
And lo, thy deepest lays are dumb 

Before the mouldering of a j^ew : 

And if the matin songs, that woke 
The darkness of our planet, last, 
Thine own shall wither in the vast, 

Ere half the lifetime of an oak. 

Ere these, have clothed their branchy bowers 
With fifty Mays, thy songs are vain; 
And what are they when these remain 

The ruin'd shells of hollow towers? 

LXXVII. 

What hope is here for modern rh3'me 
To him who turns a musing eye 
On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie 

Foreshorten'd in the tract of time? 



454 /AT MEMORTAM. 



These mortal lullabies of pain 

May bind a book, may line a box, 
May sen'e to curl a maiden's locks; 

Or wiien a thousand moons shall wane 

A man upon a stall may find, 

And, passing, turn the page that tells 

A grief, the unchang'd to something else, 

Sung by a long-forgotten mind. 

But what of that? My darken'd ways 
Shall ring with music all the same; 
To breathe my loss is more than fame. 

To ufter love more sweet than praise. 

I.XXVIII. 

Agaix at Christmas did we weave 

The holly round the Christmas hearth 
The silent snow possess'd the earth, 

And calmly fell our Christmas eve: 

The yule-clog sparkled keen with frost, 
No wing of wind the region swept, 
But over all things brooding slept 

The quiet sense of something lost. 

As in the winters left behind. 

Again onr ancient games had place, 
The mimic picture's breathing grace, 

And dance and song and hoodman-blind. 

Who show'd a token of distress? 
No single tear, no mark of pain : 
O sorrow, then can sorrow wane? 

O grief, can grief be changed to less? 

O last regret, regret can die! 

Xo — mixt with all this mystic frame, 
Her deep relations are the same, 

But with long use her tears are dry. 



IN MEMORIAM. 455 



LXXTX. 

" More than my biothers are to me," 
Let this not vex thee, noble heart! 
I know thee of what force thou art 

To hold the costliest love in fee. 

But thou and I are one in kind, 
As moulded like in nature's mint; 
And hill and wood and field did print 

The same sweet forms in either mind. 

For us the same cold streamlet curl'd 
Thro' all his edd3nng coves; the same 
All winds that roam the twilight came 

In whispers of the beauteous world. 

At one dear knee we proiFer'd vows. 
One lesson from one book we learn'd, 
Ere childhood's flaxen ringlet turn'd 

To black and brown on kindred brows. 

And so my wealth resembles thine, 
But he was rich where I w^as poor, 
And he supplied my wants the more 

As his unlikeness fitted mine. 

LXXX. 

If any vague desire should rise. 
That holy Death ere Arthur died 
Had moved me kindly from his side, 

And dropt the dust on tearless eyes; 

Then fancy shapes, as fancy can. 

The grief my loss in him had wrought, 
A grief as deep as life or thought. 

But stay'd in peace with God and man. 

1 make a picture in the brain; 

I hear the sentence that he speaks; 

He bears the burthen of the weeks, 
But turns his burthen into gain. 



456 IN MEMORIAM. 



His credit thus shall set me free; 

And, influence-rich to soothe and save. 
Unused example from the grave 

Reach out dead hands to comfort me. 

LXXXI. 

Could I have said while he v^^as here, 
" M}^ love shall now no further range; 
There cannot come a mellower change, 

For now is love mature in ear." 

Love, then, had hope of richer store : 
What end is here to my complaint? 
This haunting whisper makes me faint, 

" More years had made me love thee more." 

But Death returns an answer sweet: 
" My sudden frost was sudden gain. 
And gave all ripeness to the grain 

It might have drawn from after-heat." 

LXXXII. 

I WAGE not any feud with Death 

For changes wrought on form and face; 
No lower life that earth's embrace 

May breed with him can fright my faith. 

Eternal process moving on. 

From state to state the spirit walks; 
And these are but the shatter'd stalks, 

Or ruin'd cVirysalis of one. 

Nor blame I Death, because he bare 
The use of virtue out of earth : 
I know transplanted human worth 

Will bloom to profit, otherwhere. 

For this alone on Death I wreak 

The wrath that garners in my heart; 
He put our lives so far apart 

W^e cannot hear each other speak. 










Ere these, have clothed their branchy bowers." 

See page 4S3. 



IN MEMORIAM. 457 



LXXXIII. 

Dip down upon the northern shore, 
O sweet new-N'ear delaying long : 
Thou doest expectant nature wrong; 

Delaying long, delay no more. 

What stays thee from the clouded noons, 
Thy sweetness from its proper place? 
Can trouble live with April days, 

Or sadness in the summer moons? 

Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire. 
The little speedwell's darling blue. 
Deep tulips dash'd with fiery dew. 

Laburnums, dropping wells of fire. 

O thou, new-year, delaying long, 
Delay est the sorrow in my blood, 
That longs to burst a frozen bud ; 

And flood a fresher throat with song. 

LXXXIV. 



When I contemplate all alone 

The life that had been thine below. 
And fixed iny thoughts on all the glow 

To which thy crescent would have grown; 

I see thee sittins: crown'd with gfood, 
A central warmth diffusing bliss 
In glance and smile, and clasp and kiss, 

On all the branches of thy blood ; 

Thy blood, my friend, and partly mine; 
For now the day was drawing on 
When thou should' st link thy life with one 

Of mine own house, and boys of thine 

Had babbled " Uncle" on my knee; 
But that remorseless iron hour 



458 IN MEMGRIAM. 



Made cypress of her orange-flower, 
Despair of Hope, and earth of thee. 

1 seem to meet their least desire, 

To clap their cheeks, to call them mine. 
I see their unborn faces shine 

Beside the never-lighted fire, 

I see myself an honor'd guest, 
Thy partner in the flowery walk 
Of letters, genial table-talk, 

Or deep dispute, and graceful jest; 

While now thy prosperous labor fills 
The lips of men with honest praise. 
And sun by sun the happy days 

Descend below the golden hills 

With promise of a morn as fair; 

And all the train of bounteous hours 
Conduct by paths of growing powers, 

To reverence and the silver hair; 

Till slowly worn her earthly robe, 
Her lavish mission richly wrought, 
Leaving grea't legacies of thought. 

Thy spirit should fail from off the globe; 

What time mine own might also flee. 
As link'd with thine in love and fate. 
And, hovering o'er the dolorous strait 

To the other shore, invoiv'd in thee. 

Arrive at last the blessed goal 
And He that died in Holy Land 
Would reach us out the shining hand. 

And take us as a single soul. 

What reed was that on which I leant? 
Ah, backward fancy, wherefore wake 
The old bitterness again, and break 

The low beginnings of content? 



IN MEMORIAM. 459 



LXXXV. 



This truth came borne with bier and pall, 
I felt it, when I sorrow'd most, 
'Tis better to have loved and lost. 

Than never to have loved at all — 



O true in word, and tried in deed, 
Demanding, so to bring relief 
To this which is our common grief, 

What kind of life is that I lead; 

And whether trust in things above 
Be dimm'd of sorrow^ or sustain'd; 
And whether love for him have drain'd 

My capabilities of love; 

Your words have virtue such as draws 
A faithful answer from the breast, 
Thro' light reproaches, half exprest. 

And loyal unto kindly laws. 

My blood an even tenor kept. 

Till on iTiine ear this message falls 
That in Vienna's fatal walls 

God's finger touch'd him, and he slept. 

The great Intelligences fair 

That range above our mortal state. 
In circle round the blessed gate, 

Receiv'd and gave him welcome there; 

And led him thro' the blissful climes, 
And show'd him in the fountain fresh 
All knowledge that the sons of flesh 

Shall gather in the cycled times. 

But I remain'd, whose hopes were dim. 

Whose life, whose thoughts were little worth, 
To wander on a darken'd earth, 

W^here all thino-s round me breathed of him. 



460 7.Y MBMORIAM. 



O friendship, equal-pois'd control, 

O heart, witli kindliest motion warm, 

sacred essence, other form, 

solemn ghost, O crowned soul! 

Yet none could better kno^v than I, 
How much of act at human hands 
The sense of human will demands 

By which we dare to live or die. 

Whatever way my days decline, 

1 felt and feel tho' left alone. 
His being working in mine own, 

The footsteps of his life in mine; 

A life that all the Muses deck\l 

With gifts of grace, that might express 
All-comprehensive tenderness, 

All-subtilizing intellect: 

And so m}^ passion hath not swerv'd 
To works of weakness, but I find 
An image comforting the mind. 

And in my grief a strength reserved. 

Likewise the imaginative woe, 

That loved to handle spiritual strife. 
Diffused the shock thro' all my life. 

But in the present broke the blow. 

My pulses therefore beat again 
For other friends that once I met; 
Nor can it suit me to forget 

The mighty hope that makes us men. 

1 woo your love: I count it crime 
To mourn for any overmuch; 
I, the divided half of such 

A friendship as had master'd Time; 

Which masters Time indeed, and is 
Eternal, separate from fears; 



IN MEMORIAM. 461 



The all-assnming months and years, 
Can take no part away from this : 

But Summer on the steaming floods, 

And Spring that swells the narrow brooks, 
And Autumn, with a noise of rooks, 

That gather in the waning woods, 

And every pulse of wind and wave 
Recalls, in change of light or gloom, 
My old affection of the tomb, 

And my prime passion in the grave: 

My old affection of the tomb, 

A part of stillness, yearns to speak: 
" Arise, and get thee forth and seek 

A friendship for the years to come. 

"I watch thee from the quiet shore; 

Thy spirit up to mine can reach ; 

But in dear words of human speech 
We two communicate no more." 

And I, " Can clouds of nature stain 

The starry clearness of the free? 

How is it? Canst thou feel for me 
Some painless sympathy with pain?" 

And lightly does the whisper fall: 
" 'Tis hard for thee to fathom this: 
I triumph in conclusive bliss. 

And that serene result of all." 



So hold I commerce with the dead; 

Or so methinks the dead would say; 

Or so shall grief with symbols play, 
And pining life be fancy-fed. 



Now looking to some settled end. 

That these things pass, and I shall prove 
A meeting somewhere, love v^^ith love, 

I crave your pardon, O my friend; 



462 



AV MEMORIAM. 



If not so fresh, with love as true, 
I, clasping" brother-hands, aver 
I could not, if I would, transfer 

The whole I felt for him to you. 

For which be they that hold apart 
The promise of the golden hours? 
First love, first friendship, equal powers, 

That marrv with the virgin heart. 

Still mine, that cannot but deplore, 
That beats within a lonely place. 
That yet remembers his embrace. 

But at his footstep leaps no more. 

M}- heart, tho' widow'd, may not rest 
Quite in the love of \vhat is gone. 
But seeks to beat in time with one 

That warms another living breast. 




Ah, take the imperfect gift I bring, 
Knowing the primrose yet is dear. 



IN MEMORIAM. 463 



The primrose of the later year, 
As not unhke to that of Spring. 

LXXXVI. 

Sweet after showers, ambrosial air, 
That rollest from the gorgeous gloom 
Of evening over brake and bloom 

And meadow, slowly breathing bare 

The round of space, and rapt below 
Thro' all the dewy-tassell'd wood, 
And sliadowing dowm the horned flood 

In ripples, fan my brows and blow 

The fever from my cheek, and sigh 
The full new life that feeds thy breath 
Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death, 

111 brethren let the fancy fly 

From belt to belt of crimson seas 
On leagues of odor streaming far. 
To w^here in yonder orient star 

A hundred spirits whisper " Peace." 

LXXXVII. 

I PAST beside the reverend walls 
In which of old I wore the gown; 
I roved at random thro' the town, 

And saw the tumult of the halls; 

And heard once more in college fanes 
The storm their high-built organs make, 
And thunder-music, rolling, shake 

The prophets blazoii'd on the panes; 

And caught once more the distant shout. 
The measur'd pulse of racing oars 
Among the willows; paced the shores 

And many a bridge, and all about 



464 /iV MEMORIAM, 



The same gray flats again, and felt 
The same, but not the same; and last 
Up that long walk of limes I past 

To see the rooms in which he dwelt. 

Another name was on the door: 
I linger'd ; all w^ithin was noise 
^ Of songs, and clapping hands, and iDoys 
That crash'd the glass and beat the floor; 

Where once we held debate, a band 
Of youthful friends, on mind and art, 
And labor, and the changing mart. 

And all the framework of the land ; 

When one would aim an arrow fair. 
But send it slackly from the string; 
And one would pierce an outward ring. 

And one an inner, here and there; 

And last the master-bowman, he 

Would cleave the mark. A willing ear 
We lent him. Who, but hung to hear 

The rapt oration flowing free 

From point to point, with power and grace 
And music in the bounds of law, 
To those conclusions ^vhen we saw 

The God within him light his face. 

And seem to lift the form, and glow 
In azure orbits heavenly-wise; 
And over those ethereal eyes 

The bar of Michael Ang-elo. 



LXXXVIII. 

Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet. 
Rings Eden thro' the budded quicks, 
O tell me where the senses mix, 

O tell me where the passions meet. 



IN MEMORIAM. 



465 



Whence radiate: fierce extremes employ 
Thy spirits in the darkening leaf, 
And in the midmost heart of grief 

Thy passion clasps a secret Joy : 

And I — my harp would prelude woe — 
I cannot all command the strings; 
The glory of the sun of things 

Will flash alons: the chords and sro. 




JLXXXIX. 

Witch-elms that counterchange the floor 
Of this flat dawn with dusk and bright; 
And thou, with all thy breadth and height 

Of foliage, towering sycamore; 

How often, hither wandering down, 
My Arthur found your shadows fair, 
And shook to all the libera] air 

The dust and din and steam of town: 



80 



He brought an eye for ail he saw ; 

He mixt in all our simple sports; 

They pleas'd him, fresh from broiling courts 
And dusty purlieus of the law. 



466 IN MEMORIAM. 



O joy to him in this retreat, 
Immantled in ambrosial dark, 
To drink the cooler air, and mark 

The landscape winking thro' the heat: 

O sound to rout the brood of cares, 

The sweep of scythe in morning dew, 
The gust that round the garden flew, 

And tumbled half the mellowing pears! 

O bliss, ^vhen all in circle drawn 
About him, heart and ear were fed 
To hear him, as he lay and read 

The Tuscan poet on the lawn: 

Or in the all-golden afternoon 
A guest, or happy sister, sung. 
Or here she brought the harp and flung 

A ballad to the brightening moon: 

Nor less it pleased in livelier moods. 
Beyond the bounding hill to stray. 
And break the livelong summer day 

With banquet in the distant woods; 



Whereat we glanc'd from theme to theme, 
Discuss'd the books to love or hate, 
Or touch'd the changes of the state. 

Or threaded some Socratic dream; 



But if I prais'd the busy town. 
He loved to rail against it still. 
For ** ground in yonder social mill, 

We rub each other's angles down, 

"And merge," he said, " in form and gloss 
The picturesque of man and man." 
We talk'd: the stream beneath us ran 

The wine-flask lying couch'd in moss, 

Or cool'd within the glooming wave 
And last, returning from afar, 



IN MEMORIAM. 467 



Before the crimson-circled star 
Had fall'n into her father's grave, 

And brushing ankle-deep in flowers, 
We heard behind the woodbine veil 
The milk that bubbled in the pail. 

And buzzings of the honeyed hours. 

xc. 

He tasted love with half his mind, 
Nor ever drank the inviolate spring 
Where nighest heaven, who first could fling 

This bitter seed among mankind: 

That could the dead, whose dying eyes 
Were closed with wail, resume their life. 
They would but find in child and wife 

An iron welcome when they rise: 

'Twas well, indeed, when warm with wine. 
To pledge- them with a kindly tear, 
To talk them o'er, to wish them here, 

To count their memories half divine: 

But if they came who passed away, 
Behold their brides in other hands; 
The hard heir strides about their lands. 

And will not yield them for a day. 

Yea, tho' their sons were none of these, 
Not less the yet-loved sire would make 
Confusion worse than death, and shake 

The pillars of domestic peace. 

Ah dear, but come thou back to me: 

Whatever change the years have wrought 
I find not yet one lonely thought 

That cries against my wish for thee. 



468 IN MEM OR/ AM. 



XCI. 



When rosy plumelets tuft the larch, 
And rarely pipes the mounted thrush: 
Or underneath the barren bush 

Flits by the sea-blue bird of March; 

Come, wear the form by which I know 
Thy spirit in time among thy peers; 
The hope of unaccomplish'd years 

Be large and lucid round thy brew. 

When summer's hoindy-mellowing change 
May breathe, with many roses sweet, 
Upon the thousand waves of wheat. 

That ripple round the lonely grange; 

Come : not in watches of the night. 

But where the sunbeam broodeth warm, 
Come, beauteous in thine after form. 

And like a finer light in light. 



If any vision should reveal 

Thy likeness, I might count it vain, 
As but the canker of the brain: 

Yea, tho' it spake and made appeal 

To chances where our lots were cast 
Together in the days behind, 
I might but say, I hear a wind 

Of memory murmuring the past. 

Yea, tho' it spake and bared to view 
A fact within the coming year; 
And tho' the months, revolving near, 

Should prove the phantom-warning true. 

They might not seem thy prophecies, 
But spiritual presentiments, 
And such refraction of events 

As often rises ere they rise. 



IN MEMORIAM. 409 



XCIII. 

I SHALL not see thee. Dare I say- 
No spirit ever brake the band 
That stays him from the native land, 

Where first he wali<:'d when clasp'd in clay? 

No visual shade of some one lost, 

But he, the Spirit himself, may come 
Where all the nerve of sense is numb; 

Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost. 

O, therefore from thy sightless range 

With gods in unconjectur'd bliss, 

O, from the distance of the abyss 
Of ten-fold complicated change, 

Descend, and touch, and enter; hear 

The wish too strong for words to name; 
That in this blindness of the frame 

My Ghost may feel that thine is near. 

XCIV. 

How pure at heart and sound in head. 

With what divine affections bold. 

Should be the man whose thought would hold 
An hour's communion with the dead. 



In Viiin shalt thou, or any, call 

The spirits from their golden day. 
Except, like them, thou too canst say, 

M\' spirit is at peace with all. 

They haunt the silence of the breast, 
Imaginations calm and fair. 
The memory like a cloudless air, 

The conscience as a sea at rest: 

But when the heart is full of din. 
And doubt beside the portal waits, 
They can but listen at the gates. 

And hear the household jar within. 



470 IN MEMORIAM. 



xcv 



By night we linger'd on the lawn, 

For underfoot the herb Was dry; 

And genial warmth; and o'er the sky 
The silvery haze of summer drawn; 

And calm tliat let the tapers burn 
Unwavering; not a cricket chirr'd; 
The brook alone far-off was heard, 

And on the board the fluttering urn: 

And bats went round in fragrant skies. 
And wheel'd or lit the filmy shapes 
That haunt the dusk, with ermine capes 

And woolly breasts and beaded eyes* 

While now we sang old songs that peal'd 

From knoll to knoll, where, couch'd at ease. 
The white kine glimmer'd, and the trees 

Laid their dark arms about the field. 

But when those others, one bv one, 

Withdrew themselves from me and night, 
And in the house lio;ht after lio^ht 

Went out, and I was all alone, 

A hunger seized my heart; I read 

Of that glad year that once had been. 

In those fall'n leaves which kept their green, 

The noble letters of the dead: 

And strangely on the silence broke 

The silent-speaking words, and strange 
Was love's dumb cry defying change 

To test his worth; and strangely spoke 

The faith, the vigor, bold to dwell 

On doubts that drive the coward back. 
And keen thro' wordy snares to track 

Suggestion to her inmost cell. 



JN MEMORIAM. 471 



'So word by word, and line by line, 

The dead man touch' d me from the past. 
And all at once it seem'd at last 

His living soul v/as flash'd on mine, 



And mine in his was wound, and whirl'd 
About empyreal heights of thought, 
And came on that which is, and caught 

The deep pulsations of the world, . 

.Ionian music measuring out 

The steps of Time, the shocks of Chance, 
The blows of Death. At length my trance 

Was cancell'd, stricken thro' with doubt. 

Vague words! but ah, how hard to frame 
In matter-moulded forms of speech. 
Or ev'n for mtellect to reach 

Thro' memory that which I became: 

Till now tlie doubtful dusk reveal'd 

The knoll once more where, couch'd at ease, 
The white kine glimmer'd, and the trees 

Laid their dark arms about the field: 

And suck'd from out the distant gloom, 
A breeze began to tremble o'er 
The large leaves of the sycamore, 

And fluctuate all the still perfume. 

And gathering freshlier overhead, 

Rock'd the fuU-foliaged elms, and swung 
The heavy-folded rose, and flung 

The lilies to and fro, and said, 

" The dawn, the dawn," and died away; 
And East and West, without a breath, 
Mixt their dim lights, like life and death, 

To broaden into boundless day. 



472 IN MEMORIAM. 



XCVI. 

You say, but with no touch of scorn, 

Sweet-hearted, you, whose light-blue 3yes 
Are tender over drowning- flies, 

You tell me, doubt is Devil-born. 

I kno^v not: one indeed I knew 
In many a subtle question versed, 
Who touch'd a jarring lyre at first. 

But ever strove to make it true: 

Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds. 

At last he beat his music out. 

There lives more faith in honest doubt, 
Believe me, than in half the creeds. 

He fought his doubts and gather'd strength, 
He would not make his judgment bhnd. 
He faced the spectres of the mind 

And laid them; thus he came at length 

t 

To find a stronger faith his own; 

And Power was with him in the night, 
Which makes the darkness and the light, 

And dwells not in the light alone, 

But in the darkness and the cloud. 
As over Sinai's peaks of old, 
While Israel made their gods of gold, 

Altho' the trumpet blew so loud. 

XCVII. 

My love has talk'd with rocks and trees; 
He finds on misty mountain-ground 
His own vast shadow glory-crown'd; 

He sees himself in all he sees. 

Two partners of a married life, — 

I look'd on these, and thought of thee 
In vastness and in mystery. 

And of my spirit as of a wife. 




->r^^^ — 



" And the trees 
Laid their dark arms about the field." 

See page ^f^o. 



/A MEMORIAM. 473 



These two — they dwelt with eye on eye, 
Their hearts of old have beat in tune, 
Their meetings made December June, 

Their every parting was to die. 

Their love has never past away; 
The days she never can forget 
Are earnest that he loves her yet, 

Whate'er the faithless people say. 

Her life is lone, he sits apart. 

He loves her yet, she will not weep, 
Tho' rapt in matters dark and deep 

He seems to slight her simple heart. 

He thrids the labyrinth of the mind, 
He reads the secret of the star, 
He seems so near and yet so far, 

He looks so cold: she thinks him kind. 

She keeps the gift of years before, 
A wither'd violet is her bliss; 
She knows not what his greatness is: 

For that, for all, she loves him more. 

For him she plays, to him she sings 
Of early faith and plis^hted vows; 
She knows but matters of the house. 

And he, he knows a thousand things. 

Her faith is fixt and cannot move. 
She darkly feels him great and wise, 
She dwells on him with faithful eyes, 

*' I cannot understand: I love." 



XCVIII. 

You leave us: you will see the Rhine, 
And those fair hills I saiPd below, 
When I was there with him; and go 

By summer belts of wheat and vine 



474 IN MEMORIAM, 



To where he breathed his latest breath, 
That City. All her splendor seems 
No livelier than the wisp that gleams 

On Lethe in the eyes of Death. 

Let her great Danube rolling fair 
Enwind her isles, unmark'd of me : 
I have not seen, I will not see 

Vienna; rather dream that there, 

A treble darkness, Evil haunts 

The birth, the bridal; friend from friend 

Is oftener parted, fathers bend 
Above more graves, a thousand wants 

Gnar at the heels of men, and prcv 

By each cold hearth, and sadness flings 
Her shadow on the blaze of kings: 

And yet myself have heard him say, 

That not in any mother town 

With statelier progress to and fro 
The double tides of chariots flow 

By park and suburb under brown 

Of lustier leaves: nor more content, 
He told me, lives in any crowd, 
When all is gay with lamps, and loud 

With sport and song, in booth and tent, 

Imperial halls, or open plain; 

And wheels the circled dance, and breaks 

The rocket molten into flakes 
Of crimson or in emerald rain. 



xcix. 

RiSEST thou thus, dim dawn, again. 
So loud with voices of the birds. 
So thick with lowings of the herds^ 

Day, when I lost the flower of men; 



/N MEMORIAM. 



475 



Who tremblest thro' thy darkUng red 
On yon swoU'n brook that bubbles fast 




By meadows breathing of the past, 
And woodlands holy to the dead; 

Who murmurest in the foliaged eaves 
A song that slights the coming care, 
And Autumn laying here and there 

A fiery finger on the leaves; 

Who wakenest with thy balmy breath 
To myriads on the genial earth, 
Memories of bridal, or of birth. 

And unto myriads more, of death. 

O, wheresoever those may be, 

Betwixt the slumber of the poles, 
To-day they count as kindred souls; 

They know me not, but mourn with me. 



c. 



I CLIMB the hill : from end to end 
Of all the landscape underneath, 
I find no place that does not breathe 

Some gracious memory of my friend; 



476 /iVr MEMORIAM. 



No gray old grange, or lonely fold, 
Or low morass and whispering reed, 
Or simple stile from mead to mead, 

Or sheepwalk up the windy wold ; 

Nor hoary knoll of ash and haw 
That hears the latest linnet trill. 
Nor quarry trench'd along the hill, 

And haunted by the wrangling daw; 

Nor runlet tinkling from the rock : 
Nor pastoral rivulet that swerves 
To left and right thro' meadowy curves, 

That feed the mothers of the flock ; 

But each has pleased a kindred eye. 
And each reflects a kindlier day; 
And, leaving these, to pass away, 

I think once more he seems to die. 



CI. 



Unwatch'd, the garden bough shall sway. 
The tender blossom flutter down, 
Unlov'd, that beech will gather brown, 

This maple burn itself away; 

Unlov'd, the sun-flower, shining fair, 

Ray round with flames her disc of seed, 
And many a rose-carnation feed 

With summer spice. the humming air; 

Unlov'd, by many a sandy bar. 

The brook shall babble down the plain, 
At noon, or when the lesser wain 

Is twisting round the polar star; 

Uncared for, gird the windy grove, 

And flood the haunts of hern and crake; 
Or into silver arrows break 

The sailing moon in creek and cove; 



IN MEMORIAM. 477 



Till from the garden and the wild 

A fresh association blow, 

And year by year the landscape grow, 
Familiar to the stranger's child; 

As year by year the laborer tills 

His wonted glebe, or lops the glades; 
And 3'ear by year our memory fades 

From all the circle of the hills. 



CII. 



We leave the well-beloved place 
Where first we gazed upon the sky; 
The roofs, that heard our earliest cry, 

Will shelter one of strang-er race. 



We go, but ere we go from home. 
As down the garden-walks I move, 
Two spirits of a diverse love 

Contend for loving masterdom. 

One wdiispers, thy bo\^hood sung 

Long since its matin song, and heard 
The low love-language of the bird 

In native hazels tassel-hung. 

The other answers, " Yea, but here 
Thy feet have strayed in after hours 
With thy lost friend among the bowers, 

And this hath made then trebly dear." 

These two have striven half the day, 
And each prefers his separate clay. 
Poor rivals in a losing game. 

That will not yield each other way. 

I turn to go: my feet are set 

To leave the pleasant fields and farms; 

They mix in one another's arms 
To one pure image of regret. 



478 IN MEMORIAM. 



cm. 



On that last night before we went 
From out the doors where I was bred, 
I dream'd a vision of the dead, 

Which left m}' after-morn content. 

Methought I dwelt within a hall, 
And maidens with me: distant hills 
From hidden summits fed ^vith rills 

A river sliding by the wall. 

The hall with harp and carol rang. 
They sang of what is wise and good 
And graceful. In the centre stood 

A statue veil'd, to which they sang; 

And which, tho' veil'd, was known to me, 
The shape of him I lov'd, and love 
Forever: then flew in a dove 

And brought a summons from the sea; 

And when they learnt that I must go, 
They wept and wail'd, but led the way 
To where a little shallop lay 

At anchor in the flood below; 

And on by many a level mead, 

And shadowing bluff that made the banks, 

We glided winding under ranks 
Of iris, and the golden reed ; 

And still as vaster grew the shore. 

And roll'd the floods in grander space. 
The maidens gathered strength and grace 

And presence, lordlier than before; 

And I myself, who sat apart 

And watch'd them, wax'd in every limb; 

I felt the thews of Anakim, 
The pulses of a Titan's heart; 



IN MEMORIAM. 479 



As one would sing the death of war, 
And one would chant the history 
Of that great race which is to be, 

And one the shaping of a star; 

Until the forward creeping tides 
Began to foam, and we to draw, 
From deep to deep, to where we saw 

A great ship lift her shining sides. 

The man we loved was there on deck, 
But thrice as large as man he bent 
To greet us. Up the side I went. 

And fell in silence on his neck : 

Whereat those maidens with one mind 
BewailM their lot; I did them wrong: 
" We served thee here," they said, " so long, 

And wilt thou leave us now behind } " 

So wrapt I was, they could not win 

An answer from my lips, but he 

Replying, " Enter likewise ye 
And go with us;" they enter'd in. 

And while the wind began to sweep 
A music out of sheet and shroud. 
We steer'd her toward a crimson cloud 

That landlike slept along the deep. 



CIV. 

The time draws near the birth of Christ; 

The moon is hid, the night is still; 

A single church below the hill 
Is pealing, folded in the mist. 

A single peal of bells below. 

That wakens at this hour of rest 
A single murmur in the breast, 

That these are not the bells I know. 



480 IN MEMORIAM, 



Like stranger's voices here they sound, 
In lands where not a memory strays. 
Nor landmark breathes of other days. 

But all is new unhallow'd ground. 



cv. 



This holly by the cottage-eave, 

To-night, ungather'd, shall it stand: 
We live within the stranger's land, 

And strangely falls our Christmas-eve. 

Our father's dust is left alone 
And silent under other snows: 
There in due time the woodbine blows, 

The violet comes, but we are gone. 

No more shall wayward grief abuse 
The genial hour with mask and mime; 
For change of place, like growth of time. 

Has broke the bond of dying use. 

Let cares that petty shadows cast, 

By which our lives are chiefly proved, 
A little spare the night I loved, 

And hold it solemn to the past. 

But let no footstep beat the floor, 

Nor bowl nor wassail mantle warm; 
For v/ho would keep an ancient form 

Thro' which the spirit breathes no more.'* 

Be neither song, nor game, nor feast; 

Nor harp be touch'd, nor flute be blown;. 
No dance, no motion, save alone 

What lightens in the lucid east 

Of rising worlds by yonder wood. 

Long sleeps the summer in the seed; 

Run out your measured arcs, and lead 
The closinsf cvcle rich in good. 



IN MEMORIAM. 



481 




cvi. 

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, 
Thy flying cloud, the frosty light: 
The year is dying in the night; 

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. 

Ring out the old, ring in the new, 
Ring, happy bells, across the snow 
The year is going, let him go; 

Ring out the false, ring in the true. 



Ring out the grief that saps the mind. 
For those that here we see no more; 
Ring out the feud of rich and poor, 

Rintr in redress to all mankind. 



31 



482 IN MBMORIAM. 



Ring out a slowl}^ dying cause, 

And ancient forms of party strife; 
Ring in the nobler modes of life, 

With sweeter manners, purer laws. 

Ring out the want, the care, the sin. 
The faithless coldness of the times; 
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes. 

But ring the fuller minstrel in. 

Ring out false pride in place and blood. 
The civic slander and the spite; 
Ring in the love of truth and right. 

Ring in the common love of good. 

Ring out old shapes of foul disease; 
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold, 
Ring: out the thousand wars of old. 

Ring in the thousand years of peace. 

Ring in the valiant man and free, 
The larger heart, the kindlier hand; 
Ring out the darkness of the land, 

Ring in the Christ that is to be. 

CVII. 



It is the day when he was born, 

A bitter day that early sank 

Behind a purple-frosty bank 
Of vapor, leaving night forlorn. 

The time admits not flowers or leaves 
To deck the banquet. Fiercely flies 
The blast of North and East, and ice 

Makes daggers at the sharpen'd eaves, 

And bristles all the brakes and thorns 
To yon hard crescent, as she hangs 
Above the wood which grides and clangs 

Its leafless ribs and iron horns. 



IN MEMORIAM. 483 



Togetlier, in the drifts that pass 

To darken on the rolHng brine 

That breaks the coast. But fetch the wine, 
Arrange the board and brim the glass; 

Bring in great logs and let them lie, 
To make a solid core of heat^ 
Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat 

Of all things ev'n as he were by; 

We keep the da}'. With festal cheer, 
With books and music, surely we 
Will drink to him whate'er he be. 

And sing the songs he lov'd to hear. 

CVIII. 

I WILL not shut me from my kind, 

And, lest I stiffen into stone, 

I will not eat my heart alone, 
Nor feed with sighs a passing wind; 

What profit lies- in barren faith, 

And vacant yearning, tho' with might 
To scale the heaven's highest height, 

Or dive below the wells of Death? 

W hat find I in the highest place, 

But mine ow^n phantom chanting hymns? 
And on the depths of Death there swims 

The reflex of a human face. 

I'll rather take what fruit may be 
Of sorrow under human skies: 
'Tis held that sorrow makes us wise, 

Whatever wisdom sleep with thee. 

cix. 

Heart-affluence in discursive talk 
From household fountains never dry; 
The critic clearness of an eye. 

That saw thro' all the Muses' walk; 



484 IN MEMORIAM. 



Seraphic intellect and force 

To seize and throw the doubts of man: 
Impassion'd logic, which outran 

The hearer in its fiery course; 

High nature amorous of the good, 
But touch'd with no ascetic gloom; 
And passion pure in snowy bloom 

Thro' all the years of April bloo 

A love of freedom rarely felt, 
Of freedom in her regal seat 
Of England; not the schoolboy heat. 

The blind hysterics of the Celt; 



And manhood fused with female grace 
In such a sort, the child would twine 
A trustful hand, unask'd, in thine, 

And find his comfbrt in thy face ; 



All these have been, and thee mine eyes 
Have look'd on: if they look'd in vain. 
My shame is greater who remain, 

Nor let thy wisdom make me wise. 



ex. 



Thy converse drew us with delight. 
The men of rathe and riper years: 
The feeble soul, a haunt of fears, 

Forgot his weakness in thy sight. 

On thee the loyal-hearted hung. 

The proud was half disarm 'd of pride. 
Nor cared the serpent at thy side 

To flicker with his double tongue. 

The stern were mild when thou wert by. 
The flippant put himself to school 
And heard thee, and the brazen fool 

Was soften'd, and he knew not why ; 



JX MEMORIAM. 485 



While I, thy dearest, sat apart, 

And felt thy triumph was as mine; 

And lov'd them more, that they were thine, 

The graceful tact, the Christian art; 

Not mine the sweetness or the skill. 
But mine the love that will not tire, 
And, born of love, the vague desire 

That spurs an imitative will. 

CXI. 

The churl in spirit, up or down 

Along the scale of ranks, thro' all. 
To him who grasps a golden ball, 

Bv blood a king, at heart a clown ; 

The churl in spirit, howe'er he veil 
His want in forms for fashion's sake. 
Will let his coltish nature break 

At seasons thro' the gilded pale: 

Por who can always act? but he, 

To whom a thousand memories call. 
Not being less but more than all 

The gentleness he seem'd to be, 

J^est seem'd the thing lie was, and join'd 
Each office of the social hour 
To noble manners, as tlie flower 

And native growth of noble mind; 

Nor ever narrow^ness or spite. 
Or villain fancy fleeting by. 
Drew in the expression of an eye, 

\Vherc God and Nature met in light; 

And thus he bore without abuse 

The grand old name of gentleman, 
Defamed by every charlatan. 

And soil'd with all ignoble use. 



486 11^ MEMORIAM. 



CXII. 

High wisdom holds my wisdom less, 
That I, who gaze with temperate eyes 
On glorious insufficiencies, 

Set light by narrower perfectness. 

But thou, that fillest all the room 
Of all my love, art reason why 
I seem to cast a careless eye 

On souls, the lesser lords of doom. 

For what wert thou? some novel power 
Sprang up forever at a touch. 
And hope could never hope too much, 

In watching thee from hour to hour. 

Large elements in order brought, 

And tracks of calm from tempest made, 
And world-wide fluctuation sway'd 

In vassal tides that follow'd thought. 

CXIII. 

'Tis held that sorrow makes us wise ; 
Yet how much wisdom sleeps with thee 
Which not alone had guided me. 

But serv'd the seasons that may rise ; 

For can I doubt who knew thee keen 
In intellect, with force and skill 
To strive, to fashion, to fulfil — 

I doubt not what thou wouldst have been: 

A life in civic action warm, 

A soul on highest mission sent, 
A potent voice of Parliament, 

A pillar steadfast in the storm. 

Should licens'd boldness gather force. 
Becoming, when the time has birth, 
A lever to uplift the earth 

And roll it in another course. 



IN MEMORIAM. 487 



With thousand shocks that come and go, 
With agonies, with energies, 
With overthrowings, and with cries, 

And undulations to and fro.' 



cxiv. 

Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail 
Against her beauty? May she mix 
With men and prosper! Who shall fix 

Her pillars? Let her work prevail. 

But on her forehead sits a fire : 
She sets her forward countenance 
And leaps into the future chance, 

Submitting all things to desire. 

Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain — 
She cannot fight the fear of death, 
What is she, cut from love and faitli, 

But some wild Pallas from the brain 

Of Demons? fiery-hot to burst 
All barriers in her onward race 
For power. Let her know her place ; 

She is the second, not the first. 

A higher hand must make her mild, 
If all be not in vain: and guide 
Her footsteps, moving side by side 

With wisdom, like the younger child: 

For she is earthly of the mind, 

But Wisdom heavenly of the soul. 
O friend, who camest to thy goal 

So early, leaving me behind, 

I would the great world grew like thee, 
Who grewest not alone in power 
And knowledge, but by year and hour 

In reverence and in charity. 



488 



JN^ MEMORIAM. 



CXV. 

Now fades the last long streak of snow, 
Now bourgeons every inaze of quick 
About the flowering squares, and thick 

By ashen roots the violets blow. 

Now rings the woodland loud and long, 
The distance takes a lovelier hue, 
And drown'd in yonder living blue 

The lark becomes a sightless song. 




'^'^^i^^-x^^^' ^-^^'^S 



^:i li /-i ' /« C 



Now dance the lights on lawn and lea. 
The flocks are whiter down the vale. 
And milkier every milky sail 

On winding stream or distant sea; 



TN MEMORIAM. 489 



Where now the seamew pipes, or dives 
In yonder gleaming- green, and fly 
The happy hirds that change their sky 

To build and brood ; that live their lives 

From land to land: and in my breast 
Spring weakens too; and m}^ regret 
Becomes an April violet, 

And buds and blossoms like the rest. 

CXVI. 

Is IT, then, regret for buried time 

That keenlier in sw^eet April wakes, 
And meets the year, and gives and takes 

The colors of the crescent prime? 

Not all: the songs, the stirring air. 
The life re-orient out of dust, 
Crj^ thro' the sense to hearten trust 

In that which made the world so fair. 

Not all regret: the face will shine 
Upon me, while I muse alone; 
And that dear voice I once have known. 

Still S2:)eak to me of me and mine: 

Yet less of sorrow lives in me 

For days of happy commune dead; 
Less yearning for the friendship fled, 

Than some strong bond which is to be. 

CXVII. 

O DAYS and hours, your work is this. 
To hold me from my proper place, 
A little while from his embrace, 

For fuller gain of after bliss; 

That out of distance might ensue 
Desire of nearness doubly sweet, 
And unto meeting w^hen we meet, 

Delight a hundred-fold accrue, 



490 IN MEMORIAM. 



For every grain of sand that runs, 
And every span of shade that steals, 
And every kiss of toothed wheels, 

And all the courses of the suns. 



CXVIII. 

Contemplate all this work of Time, 

The giant laboring in his youth; 

Nor dream of human love and truth, 
As dying Nature's earth and lime; 

But trust that those we call the dead 
Are breathers of an ampler day. 
For ever nobler ends. They say. 

The solid earth whereon we tread 

In tracts of fluent heat began, 

And grew to seeming-random forms, 
The seeming prey of cyclic storms, 

Till at the last arose the man; 

Who throve and branch'd from clime to clime. 

The heralH of a higher race, 

And of himself in higher place, 
If so he type this work of time 

Within himself, from more to more; 
Or, crown'd with attributes of woe 
Like glories, move his course, and show 

That life is not as idle ore, 

But iron dug from central gloom, 
And heated hot with burning fears. 
And dipt in baths of hissing tears. 

And batter'd with the shocks of doom 

To shape and use. Arise and fly 
The reeling Faun, the sensual feast; 
Move upward, working out the beast. 

And let the ape and tiger die. 



IN MEMORIAM. 491 



CXIX. 

Doors, where my heart was used to beat 
So quickly, not as one that weeps 
I come once more; the city sleeps; 

I smell the meadow^ in the street j 

I hear a chirp of birds; I see 

Betwixt the black fronts long-withdrawn 
A light-blue lane of early dawn, 

And think of early days and thee, 

And bless thee, for thy lips are bland, 
And bright the friendship of thine eye: 
And in my thoughts with scarce a sigh 

I take the pressure of thine hand. 

cxx. 

I TRUST I have not wasted breath; 
I think we are not wholly brain, 
Magnetic mockeries; not in vain. 

Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death; 

Not only cunning casts in clay: 

Let Science prove we are, and then 
What matters Science unto men, 

At least to me? I would not stay. 

Let him, the wiser man who springs 
Hereafter, up from childhood shape 
His action, like the greater ape, 

But I was horn to other thingrs. 



CXXI. 

Sad Hesper o'er the buried sun, 
And ready, thou, to die with him 
Thou watchest all things ever dim 

And dimmer, and a glory done: 



492 



IJV MEMORIAM 



The team is loosen'd from the wain. 
The boat is drawn upon the shore 
Thou listenest to the closing door, 

And hfe is darken'd in the brain. 



^ iT^L '^*s^ -"sttij^ 




Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night, 
By thee the world's great work is heard 
Beginning, and the wakeful bird; 

Behind thee comes the sfi'eater lisrht: 

The market boat is on the stream. 
And voices hail it from the brink; 
Thou hear'st the village hammer clink, 

And see'st the movinsf of the team. 



Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name 
For what is one, the first, the last. 
Thou, like my present and my past, 

Thy place is changed; thou art the same. 



JN MEMORIAM. 493 



CXXII. 

O, WAST thou with me, dearest, then, 
While I rose up against my doom. 
And yearn'd to burst the folded gloom, 

To bare the eternal Heavens again. 

To feel once more, in placid awe, 

The strong imagination roll 

A sphere of stars about my soul, 
In all her motion one with law. 

If thou wert with me, and the grave 

Divide us not, be with me now. 

And enter in at breast and brow, 
Till all my blood, a fuller wave. 

Be quicken'd with a livelier breath. 

And live an inconsiderate bo}'. 

As in the former flash of joy, 
I slip the thoughts of life and death; 

And all the breeze of Fancy blows. 
And every dew-drop paints a bow. 
The wizard lightnings deeply glow. 

And every thought breaks out a rose. 

CXXIII. 

There rolls the deep where grew the tree. 

O earth, what changes thou hast seen! 

There where the long street roars, hath been 
The stillness of the central sea. 

The hills are shadows, and they flow 

From form to form, and nothing stands, 
They melt like mist, the solid lands. 

Like clouds they shape themselves and go. 

But in my spirit will I dwell, 

And dream my dream, and hold it true; 

For tho' my lips may breathe adieu, 
I cannot think the thing farewell. 



494 IN MEMORIAM. 



cxxiv. 

That which we dare invoke to bless; 
Our dearest faith; our ghastliest doubt: 
He, They, One, All; within, without; 

The Power in darkness whom we guess; 



I found Him not in world or sun, 
Or eagle's wing, or insect's e3^e; 
Nor thro' the questions men may try, 

The petty cobwebs we have spun: 

If e'er when faith had fall'n asleep, 
I heard a voice, " Believe no more," 
-^Vnd heard an ever-breaking shore 

That tumbled in the Godless deep; 

A warmth within the breast would melt 
The freezing reasons' colder part. 
And like a man in wrath the heart 

Stood up and answer'd, " I have felt." 

No, like a child in doubt and fear: 

But that blind cla«ior made me wise; 
Then v/as I as a child that cries. 

But, crying, knows his father near; 

And what I am beheld again 

What is, and no man understands; 
And out of darkness came the hands 

That reach thro' nature, moulding men. 

cxxv. 

Whatever I have said or sung. 

Some bitter notes my harp v^ould give. 
Yea, tho' there often seem'd to live 

A contradiction on the tongue. 

Yet Hope had never lost her youth: 
She did but look thro' dimmer eyes; 
Or Love but play'd with gracious lies 

Because he felt so fix'd in truth: 



IJV MEMORIAM. 495 



And if the song were full of care, 
He breathed the spirit of the song; 
And if the words were sweet and strong, 

He set his royal signet there; 

Abiding with me till I sail 

To seek thee on the mystic deeps, 
And this electric force, that keeps 

A thousand pulses dancing, fail. 

CXXVI, 

Love is and was my Lord and King, 
And in his presence I attend 
To hear the tidings of my friend, 

Which every hour his couriers bring. 

Love is and was my King and Lord, 
And will be, tho' as 3^et I keep 
Within his court on earth, and sleep 

Encompass'd by his faithful guard, 

And hear at times a sentinel 

Who moves about from place to place, 
And whispers to the worlds of space, 

In the deep night, that all is well. 

CXXVII. 

And all is well, tho' faith and form 
Be sunder'd in the night of fear; 
Well roars the storm to those that hear 

A deeper voice across the storm, 

Proclaiming social truth shall spread. 
And justice, e'en tho' thrice again 
The red fool-fury of the Seine 

Should pile her barricades with dead. 

But ill for him that wears a crown, 
And him, the lazar, in his rags: 
They tremble, the sustaining crags; 

The spires of ice are toppled down, 



496 IN MEMORIAM. 



And molten up, and roar in flood; 
The fortress crashes from on high, 
The brute earth lightens to the sky, 

And the great J£.o\\ sinks in blood, 

And compassVl by the fires of Hell ; 
While thou, dear spirit, happ\' star, 
O'erlook'st the tumult from afar, 

And smilest, knowing all is well. 

CXXVIII. 



The love that rose on stronger wings, 

Unpalsied when we met with Death, 

Is comrade of the lesser faith 
That sees the course of human things. 

No doubt vast eddies in the flood 

Of onward time shall yet be made, 

And throned races may degrade;— 
Yet, O ye mysteries of good. 

Wild Hours that fly with Hope and Fear, 

If all vour office had to do 

With old results that look like new; 
If this were all your mission here, 

To draw, to sheathe a useless sword, 

To fool the crowd with glorious lies, 

To cleave a creed in sects and cries, 
To change the bearing of a word, 

f 
To shift an arbitrary power, f 

To cramp the student at his death, 

To make old bareness picturesque 

And tuft with grass a feudal tower; 

Why then my scorn might well descend 

On you and yours. 1 see in part 

That all, as in some piece of art. 
Is toil co-operant to an end. 



IN MEMORIAM. 



497 



CXXIX. 

Dear friend, far off, my lost desire, 
So far, so near in woe and weal ; 
O loved the most, when most I feel 

There is a lower and a higher; 

Known and nnknown; hnman, divine; 

Sweet human hand and lips and eve; 

Dear heavenly friend that canst not die 
Mine, mine, forever, ever mine; 

Strange friend, past, present, and to be; 

Loved deeplier, darklier understood; 

Behold, I dream a dream of good. 
And minsrle all the world with thee. 




cxxx. 

Thy voice is on the rolling air; 
I hear thee where the waters ran 
Thou standest in the rising sun. 

And in the setting thou art fair. 



33 



What art thou then? I cannot guess; 
But tho' I seem in star and flower 
To feel thee some diffusive power, 

1 do not therefore love thee less: 



498 IN MEMORIAM. 



My love involves the love before; 

My love is vaster passion now; 

Tho' mix'd with God and Nature thou, 
I seem to love thee more and more. 

Far off thou art, biit ever nigh; 

I have thee still, and I rejoice ; 

I prosper, circled with thy voice; 
I shall not lose thee tho' I die. 

CXXXI. 

O LIVING -will that shalt enaure 

When all that seems shall suffer shock, 
Rise in the spiritual rock. 

Flow thro' our deeds and make them pure, 

That we may lift from out of dust 
A voice as unto him that hears, 
A cry above the conquer'd years 

To one that with us works, and trusts. 

With faith that comes of self-control, 
The truths that never can be proved 
Until we close with all we loved, 

And all we flow from, soul in soul. 



O true and tried, so well and long, 

Demand not thou a marriage lay; 

In that it is thy marriage day 
Is music more than any song. 

Nor have I felt so much of bliss 
Since first he told me that he loved 
A daughter of our house; nor proved 

Since that dark day a day like this: 

Tho' I since then have number'd o'er 

Some thrice three years; they went and came. 
Remade the blood and chang'd the frame, 

And yet is love not less, but more; 



IN MEMORIAM. 499 



No longer cai-ing to embalm 
In dying songs a dead regret, 
But like a statue solid-set, 

And moulded in colossal calm. 

Regret is dead, but love is more 
. Than in the summers that are flown, 
For I myself with these have grow^n 
To something greater than before; 

Which makes appear the songs I made 
As echoes out of w^eaker times, 
As half but idle braw^ling rhymes, 

The sport of random sun and shade. 

But w^here is she, the bridal flower, 
That must be made a wife ere noon? 
She enters, glowing like the moon 

Of Eden on its bridal bower: 

On me she bends her blissful eyes, 

And then on thee ; they meet thy look 
And brighten like the star that shook 

Betwixt the palms of paradise. 

O when her life was yet in bud. 
He too foretold the perfect rose. 
For thee she grew, for thee she grows 

Forever, and as fair as good. 

And thou art worthy; full of power; 
As gentle; liberal-minded, great, 
Consistent; wearing all that weight 

Of learning lightly like a flower. 

But now set out: the moon is near, 
And I must give away the bride; 
She fears not, or with thee beside 

And me behind her, will not fear: 

For I that danced her on my knee, 
That watch'd her on her nurse's arm. 



500 



IN MEMORIAM. 



That shielded all her life from harm, 
At last must part witli her to thee; 

Now waiting to be made a wife, 
Her feet, my darling, on the dead : 
Their pensive tablets round her head. 

And the most living words of life 




Breathed in her ear. The ring is on, 
The "wilt thou" answer'd, and again 
The " wilt thou " ask'd, till out of twain 

Her sweet " I will " has made ve one, 



Now sign your names, ^vhich shall be read. 
Mute symbols of a joyful morn. 
By village eyes as yet unborn ; 

The names are sign'd, and overhead 



IN MEMORIAM. 501 



Begins the clash and clang that tells 
The joy to every wandering breeze, 
The blind wall rocks, and on the trees 

The dead leaf trembles to the bells. 

O happy hour, and happier hours 
Await them. Many a merry face 
Salutes them — maidens of the place, 

That pelt us in the porch with flowers. 

O happy hour, behold the bride 

With him to whom lier hand I gave. 
They leave the porch, they pass the grave 

That has to-day its sunny side. 

To-day the grave is bright for me. 
For them the light of life increas'd. 
Who stay to share the morning feast, 

Who rest to-night beside the sea. 

Let all my genial spirits advance 
To meet and greet a whiter sun ; 
My drooping memory will not shun 

The foaming grape of eastern France. 

It circles round, and fancy plays. 

And hearts are warm'd, and faces bloom. 
As drinking health to bride and groom 

We wish them store of happy days. 

Nor count me all to blame if I 
Conjecture of a stiller guest, 
Perchance, perchance, among the rest. 

And, tho' in silence, wishing joy. 

But they must go, the time draws on. 
And those white-favor'd horses wait; 
They rise, but linger; it is late; 

Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone. 

A shade falls on us like the dark 
From little cloudlets on the grass, 



^02 IN MEMORIAM. 



But sweeps away as out we pass 
To range the woods, to roam the park, 

Discussing how their courtship grew, 
And talk of others that are wed, 
And how she look'd, and what she said, 

And back ^^ e come at fall of dew. 

Again the feast, the speech, the glee. 

The shade of passing thought, the \vealth 
Of words and wit, the double health. 

The crowning cup, the three-times-three, 

And last the dance; — till I retire: 

Dumb is that tower which spake so loud, 
And high in heaven the streaming cloud. 

And on the downs a rising fire : 

And rise, O moon, from yonder down. 

Till over down and over dale 

All nio:ht the shinins;- vaoor sail 
And pass the silent-lighted town. 

The white-faced halls, the glancing rills, 
And catch at every mountain head. 
And o'er the friths that branch and spread 

Their sleeping silver thro' the hills; 

And touch with shade the bridal doors, 
With tender gloom the roof, the wall; 
And breaking let the splendor fall 

To spangle all the happy shores 

Bv which they rest, and ocean sounds, 
And, star and system rolling past, 
A soul shall draw fi-om out the vast 

And strike his being into bounds, 

And, mov'd thro' life of lower phase. 
Result in man be born and think. 
And act and love, a closer link 

Betwixt us and the crowninof race 



IN MEMORIAM. * 503 



Of those that, eye to eye, shall look 

On knowledge; under whose command 
Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand 

Is Nature like an open book; 

No longer half-akin to brute, 

For all we thought and loved and did, 
And hoped, and sufFer'd, is but seed 

Of what in them is flower and fruit; 



Whereof the man, that with me trod 
This planet, was a noble type 
Appearing ere the times were ripe, 

That friend of mine who lives in God, 

That God, which ever lives and loves, 
One God, one law, one element, 
And one far-off divine event. 

To which the whole creation moves. 





THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 



ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 



505 



WE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON 




URY the Great Duke 

With an empire's lamentation, 
Let us bury the Great Duke 

To the noise of the mourning of a mighty 
nation, 
Mourning when their leaders fall. 

Warriors carry the warrior's pall. 
And sorrow darkens hamlet and halL 



Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore o^ 
Here, in streaming London's central roar. 
Let the sound of those he wrought for, 
And the feet of those he fought for, 
Echo round his bones forevermore. 

Lead out the pageant: sad and slow, 

As fits a universal woe, 

Let the long, long procession go. 

And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow, 

And let the mournful martial music blow; 

The last grreat Ens^lishman is low. 



Mourn, for to us he seems the last. 
Remembering all his greatness in the Past. 
No more in soldier fashion will he greet 
With lifted hand the gazer in the street. 
O friends, our chief state-oracle is dead : 
Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood. 
The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute, 
Whole in himself, a common good. 
Mourn for the man of amplest influence, 
Yet clearest of ambitious crime, 
Our greatest yet with least pretence, 
Great in council and great in wnr. 
Foremost captain of his time. 
Rich in saving common-sense. 



506 ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON 

And, as the greatest only are, 

In his simphcity subhme. 

O good gray head which all men knew, 

O voice from which their omens all men drew, 

O iron nerve to true occasion true, 

O fall'n at length that tower of strength 

Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew! 

Such was he whom we deplore. 

The long self-sacrifice of life is o'er. 

The great World- victor's victor will be seen no more. 

All is over and done : 

Render thanks to the Giver, 

England, for thy son. 

Let the bell be toll'd. 

Render thanks to the Giver, 

And render him to the mould. 

Under the cross of gold 

That shines over city and river, 

There he shall rest forever 

Among the wise and the bold. 

Let the bell be toll'd: 

And a reverent people behold 

The towering car, the sable steeds: 

Bright let it be with his blazon'd deeds. 

Dark in its funeral fold. 

Let the bell be toll'd: 

And a deeper knell in the heart be knoll'd ; 

And the sound of the sorrowing anthem roll'd 

Thro' the dome of the golden cross; 

And the volleying cannon thunder his loss; 

He knew their voices of old. 

For many a time in many a clime 

His captain's-ear has heard them boom 

Bellowing victory, bellow^ing doom: 

When he with those deep voices wrought. 

Guarding realms and kings from shame; 

With those deep voices our dead captain taught 

The tyrant, and asserts his claim 

In that dread sound to the great name. 

Which he has w^orn so pure of blame. 

In praise and in dispraise the same, 

A man of well-attemper'd frame. 

O civic Muse, to such a name. 





"^^^^XV^x 



^%^»t^ 







• Till o'er the hills her easfles flew. 



ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 507 

To such a name for ages long, 
To such a name, 

Preserve a broad approach of fame, 
And ever-ringing avenues of song. 

Who is he that cometli, Hke an honor'd guest, 

With banner and with music, with soldier and w^ith priest^ 

With a nation weeping, and breaking on my rest' 

Mighty Seaman, this is he 

W^as great by land as thou by sea. 

Thine island loves thee well, thou famous man, 

The greatest sailor since our world began. 

Now, to the roll of muffled drums, 

To thee the greatest soldier comes; 

For this is he 

Was great by land as thou by sea; 

His foes were thine; he kept us free; 

O give him welcome, this is he, 

Worthy of our gorgeous rites. 

And w^orthv to be laid by thee; 

For this is England's greatest son, 

He that gain'd a hundred fights. 

Nor ever lost an English gun; 

This is he that far away 

Against the myriads of Assaye 

Clash'd ^vith his fiery few and won; 

And underneath another sun. 

Warring on a later day, 

Round aflfrighted Lisbon drew 

The treble w'orks, the vast designs 

Of his labor'd ram^Dart-lines, 

Where he greatls' stood at bay. 

Whence he issued forth anew. 

And ever great and greater grew. 

Beating from the w^asted vines 

Back to France her banded swarms. 

Back to France with countless blows, 

Till o'er the hills her eagles flew 

Past the Pyrenean jijines, 

Follow'd up in valley and glen 

With blare of bugle, clamor of men. 

Roll of cannon and clash of arms. 

And England pouring on her foes. 

Such a war had such a close. 



508 ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE LUKE OF WELLINGTON. 

Again their ravening eagle rose 

In anger, wlieel'd on Europe-shadowing wings, 

And barking for the thrones of kings; 

Till one that sought but Duty's iron crown 

On that loud Sabbath shook the spoiler down; 

A day of onsets of despair! 

Dash'd on every rocky square 

Their surging charges foam'd themselves away; 

Last, the Prussian trumpet blew; 

Thro' the long-tormented air 

Heaven flash'd a sudden jubilant ray. 

And down we swept and charg'd and overthrew. 

So great a soldier taught us there, 

What lono^-endurino: heart could do 

In that world-earthquake, Waterloo! 

Mighty Seaman, tender and true. 

And pure as he from taint of craven guile, 

O Savior of the silver-coasted isle, 

O shaker of the Baltic and the Nile, 

If aught of things that here befall 

Touch spirit among things divine, 

If love of country move thee there at all. 

Be glad, because his bones are laid by thine! 

And thro' the centuries let a people's voice 

In full acclaim, 

A people's voice. 

The proof and echo of all human fame, 

A people's voice, when they rejoice 

At civic revel and pomp and gaine, 

Attest their great commander's claim 

With honor, honor, honor, honor to hiin. 

Eternal honor to his name. 

A people's voice! we are a people yet. 
Tho' all men else their nobler dreams forget. 
Confused by brainless mobs and lawless Powers; 
Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set 
His Saxon in blown seas and storming showers. 
We have a voice, v/ith \vhich to pay the debt 
Of boundless love and reverence and regret 
To those great men who fought, and kept it ours* 
And keep it ours, O God, from brute control; 
O Statesmen, guard us, guard the eye, the soul 
Of Europe, keep our noble England whole, 
And save the one true seed of freedom sown 



ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 509 

Betwixt a people and their ancient throne, 

That sober freedom out of which there springs 

Our loyal passion for our temperate kings; 

For, saving that, ye help to save manlvind 

Till public wrong be crumbled into dust. 

And drill the raw vv^orld for the march of mind, 

Till crowds at length be sane and crowns be just. 

But wink no more in slothful overtrusto 

Remember him w^ho led your hosts; 

He bade you guard the sacred coasts. 

Your cannons moulder on the seaward wall; 

His voice is silent in your council-hall 

Forever; and whatever tempests lower 

Forever silent; even if they broke 

In thunder, silent; yet remember all 

He spoke among you, and the Man who spoke; 

Who never sold the truth to serve the hour. 

Nor palter'd with Eternal God for power; 

Who let the turbid streams of rumor flow 

Thro' either babbling world of high and low ; 

Whose life was work, whose language rife 

With rugged maxims hewn from life; 

Wlio never spoke against a foe; 

Whose eighty winters freeze with one rebuke 

All great self-seekers trampling on the right: 

Truth-teller was our England's Alfred named; 

Truth-lover was our English Duke; 

Whatever record leap to light 

He never shall be shamed. 

Lo, the leader in these glorious wars 

Now to glorious burial slov/ly borne. 

Folio w'd by the brave of other lands, 

He, on whom from both her open hands 

Lavish Honor shower'd all her stars. 

And affluent Fortune emptied all her horn. 

Yea, let all good things await 

Him who cares not to be great. 

But as he saves or serves the state. 

Not once or twice in our rough island-story, 

The path of duty was the way to glory : 

He that walks it, only thirsting 

For the right, and learns to deaden 

Love of self, before his journey closes, 

He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting 



510 ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLTNGTON. 

Into glossy purples, which outreddeii 

All voluptuous garden-roses. 

Not once or twice in our fair island-story, 

The path of duty was the way to glory: 

He, that ever following her commands. 

On with toil of heart and knees and hands. 

Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won 

His path upward, and prevail' d. 

Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled 

Are close upon the shining table-lands 

To which our God Himself is moon and sun. 

Such was he: his work is done. 

But while the races of mankind endure. 

Let his great example stand 

Colossal, seen of every land. 

And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure: 

Till in all lands and thro' all liuman story 

The path of duty be the way to glory: 

And let the land whose hearths he saved from shame 

For many and many an age proclaim 

At civic revel and pomp and game, 

And when the long-illumined cities flame, 

Their ever-loyal iron leader's fame. 

With honor, honor, honor, honor to him, 

Eternal honor to his name. 

Peace, his triumph will be sung 

By some yet un moulded tongue 

Far on in summers that we shall not see: 

Peace, it is a day of pain 

For one about whose patriarchal knee 

Late the little children clung: 

O peace, it is a day of pain 

For one, upon ^vhose hand and heart and brain 

Once the Aveight and fate of Europe hung. 

Ours the pain, be his the gain! 

More than is of man's degree 

Must be with us, watching here 

At this, our great solemnity. 

Whom we see not we revere. 

We revere, and we refrain 

From talk of battles loud and vain, 

And brawling memories all too free 

For such a wdld humility 

As befits a solemn fane: 



ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 511 

We revere, and while we hear 
The tides of Music's golden sea 
Setting toward eternity, 
Uplifted high in heart and hope are we, 
Until we doubt not that for one so true 
There must be other nobler work to do 
Than when he fought at Waterloo, 
And Victor he must ever be. 
For tho' the Giant Ages heave the hill 
And break the shore, and evermore 
Make and break, and work their will; 
Tho' world on world in myriad myriads roll 
Round us, each with different powers, 
And other forms of life than ours. 
What know w^e greater than the soal? 
On God and Godlike men w^e build out trust. 
Hush, the Dead March wails in the people's ears: 
The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears:' 
The black earth yawns: the mortal disappears; 
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; 
He is gone w^ho seem'd so great. — 
Gone; but nothing can bereave him 
Of the force he made his ow^n 
Being here, and we believe him 
Something far advanced in state, 
And that he wears a truer crown 
Than any Avreath that man can weave him. 
But speak no more of his renown, 
Lay your earthly fancies down. 
And in the vast cathedral leave him. 
God accept him, Christ receive him. 
1852. 




MAUD. 



515 



MAUD: A MONODRAMA, 




HATE the dreadful hollow behind the little wood, 

Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red 

heat 
The red ribb'd ledges drip with a silent horror of blood, 
And Echo there, whatever is ask'd her, answers 

" Death." 



For there In the ghastly pit long since a body v^as found. 
His who had given me life — O father! O God! was it well? — 
Mangled, and flatten' d, and crush'd, and dinted into the ground 
There 3'"et lies the rock that fell with him when he fell. 

Did he fling himself down? who knows? for avast speculation had 

fail'd, 
And ever he mutter'd and madden'd, and ever wann'd with despair, 
And out he walk'd when the wind like a broken worldling wail'd. 
And the flying gold of the ruin'd woodlands drove thro' the air. 



I remember the time, for the roots of my hair were stirr'd 
By a shuffled step, by a dead weight trail'd, by a whisper' d fright. 
And my pulses closed their gates with a shock on my heart as I heard 
The shrill-edg'cl shriek of a mother divide the shuddering night. 

Villany somewhere! whose? One says, we are villains all. 
Not he: his honest fame should at least by me be maintain'd: 
But that old man, now lord of the broad estate and the Hall, 
Dropt off gorged from a scheme that had left us flaccid and drain'd. 



Why do they prate of the blessings of Peace? we have made them a 

curse. 
Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its own ; 
And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better or worse 
Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on his own hearthstone? 



516 MA UD. 



But these are the days of advance, the "works of the men of mind. 
When who but a fool would have faith in a tradesman's ware or his word? 
Is it peace or war? Civil war, as I think, and that of a kind 
The viler, as underhand, not openly bearing- the sword. 

Sooner or later I too may passively take the print 

Of the golden age — why not? I have neither hope nor trust; 

May make my heart as a millstone, set my face as a flint, 

Cheat and be cheated, and die: \vho knows? we are ashes and dust. 

* 

Peace sitting under her olive, and slurring the days gone by, 

When the poor are hovell'd and hustled together, each sex, like swine, 

When only the ledger lives, and when onh^ not all men lie; 

Peace in her vineyard — yes! — but a company forges the wine. 

And the vitriol madness flushes up in the ruffian's head, 
Till the filthy by-lane rings to the 3'ell of the trampled wife. 
While chalk and alum and plaster are sold to the poor for bread. 
And the spirit of inurder works in the very means of life. 

And Sleep must lie down arm'd, for the villa nous centre-bits 
Grind on the wakeful ear in the hush of the moonless nights. 
While another is cheating the- sick of a few last gasps, as he sits 
To pestle a poison'd poison behind his crimson lights. 

When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for a burial fee. 
And Timour-jMammon grins on a pile of children's bones. 
Is it peace or war? better, war! loud war by land and by sea, 
War with a thousand battles, and shaking a hundred thrones. 

For I trust if an enemy's fleet came yonder round by the hill, 

And the rushing battle-bolt sang from the three-decker out of the foam, 

That the smooth-faced snub-nosed rogue would leap from his counter and 

till. 
And strike, if he could, were it but with his cheating 3^ardwand, home — 

What! am I raging alone as my father raged in his mood? 
Must / too creep to the hollow and dash myself down and die 
Rather than hold by the law that I made, nevermore to brood 
On a horror of shatter'd limbs and a ^vretch'd swindler's lie? 

Would there be sorrow for 7ne P there was love in the passionate shriek, 
Love for the silent thing: that had made false haste to the grave — 



MAUD. 



51' 



Wrapt in a cloak, as I saw him, and thought he would rise and speak 
And rave at the lie and the liar, ah God, as he used to rave. 



I am sick of the Hall and the hill, I am sick of the mocr and the main. 
Why should I stay? can a sweeter chance ever come to me here? 
O, having the nerves of motion as well as the nerves of ^?i\\\^ 
Were it not w^ise if I fled from the place and the pit and the fear? 










''^i:^^i£7 



There are workmen up at the Hall: they are coming back from abroad; 

The dark old place will be gilt by the touch of a millionaire: 

I have heard, I know not whence, of the singular beauty of Maud; 

I play'd with the girl when a child; she promised then to be fair. 



Maud with her venturous climbings and tumbles and childish escapes, 
Maud the delight of the village, the ringing joy of the Hali, 
Maud with her sweet purse-mouth when my father dangled the grapes, 
Maud the beloved of my mother, the moon-faced darling of all, — 



518 MAUD. 



What is she now? My dreams are bad. She may bring me a cur.^e. 
No, there is fatter game on the moor; she will let me alone. 
Thanks, for the fiend best knows whether woman or man be the worse. 
I will bury myself in my books, and the Devil may pipe to his own. 



Long have I sigh'd for a calm: God grant I may find it at last! 

It will never be broken by Maud, she has neither savor nor salt, 

But a cold and clear-cut face, as I found when her carriage past, 

Perfectly beautiful: let it be granted her: where is the fault.? 

All that I saw (for her eyes were downcast, not to be seen) 

Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null, 

Dead perfection, no more; nothing more, if it had not been 

For a chance of travel, a paleness, an hour's defect of the rose, 

Or an underlip, you may call it a little too ripe, too full. 

Or the least little delicate aquiline curve in a sensitive nose, 

From which I escaped heart-free, with the least little touch of spleen. 



III. 



Cold and clear-cut face, why come you so cruelly meek. 
Breaking a slumber in which all spleenful folly was drown'd. 
Pale with the golden beam of an eyelash dead on the cheek,. 
Passionless, pale, cold flice, star-sweet on a gloom profound ; 
Womanlike, taking revenge too deep for a transient wrong- 
Done but in thought to your beauty, and ever as pale as before 
Growing and fading and growling upon me without a sound. 
Luminous, gemlike, ghostlike, deathlike, half the night long 
Growing and fading and growing, till I could bear it no more. 
But arose, and all by myself in my own dark garden ground. 
Listening now to the tide in its broad-flung shipwrecking roar, 
Now to the scream of a madden'd beach dragg'd down by the wave, 
Walk'd in a wintry wind by a ghastly glimmer, and found 
The shining daffodil dead, and Orion low in his grave. 



IV. 



A MILLION emeralds break from the ruby-budded lime 
In the little grove where I sit — ah, wherefore cannot I be 
Like things of the season gay, like the bountiful season bland. 
When the far-off sail is blown by the breeze of a softer clime. 



MAUD. 519 



Half-lost in the liquid azure bloom of a crescent of sea, 
The silent sapphire-spangled marriage ring of the land? 

Below me, there, is the village, and looks how quiet and small! 
And yet bubbles o'er like a city, with gossip, scandal, and spite; 
And Jack on his alehouse bench has as many lies as a Czar; 
And here on the landward side^ by a red rock, glimmers the Hall; 
And up in the high Hall-garden I see her pass like a light; 
But sorrow seize me if ever that light be my leading star! 

When have I bow'd to her father, the wrinkled head of the race? 
I met her to-day with her brother but not to her brother I bow'd; 
I bow'd to his lady-sister as she rode by on the moor; 
But the fire of a foolish pride flash'd over her beautiful face. 

child, you wrong your beauty, believe it, in being so proud; 
Your father has wealth well-gotten, and I am nameless and poor. 

1 keep but a man and a maid, ever ready to slander and steal; 
I know it, and smile a hard-set smile, like a stoic, or like 

A wiser epicurean, and let the world have its way: 

For nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal; 

The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow spear'd by the shrike, 

And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and prey. 

We are puppets, Man in his pride, and Beauty fair in her flower; 

Do we move ourselves, or are moved by an unseen hand at a game 

That pushes us ofl" from the board, and others ever succeed? 

Ah yet, we cannot be kind to each other here for an hour; 

We whisper, and hint, and chuckle, and grin at a brother's shame; 

However we brave it out, we men are a little breed. 

A monstrous eft was of old the Lord and Master of Earth, 
For him did his high sun flame, and his river billowing ran, 
And he felt himself in his force to be Nature's crowning race. 
As nine months go to the shaping an infant ripe for his birth, 
So many a million of ages have gone to the making of man: 
He now is first, but is he the last? is he not too base? 

The man of science himself is fonder of glory, and vain. 
An eye well-practised in nature, a spirit bounded and poor; 
The passionate heart of the poet is whirl'd into folly and vice. 
I would not marvel at either, but keep a temperate brain; 



520 MA UD. 



For not to desire or admire, if a man could learn it, were more 
Than to walk all day like the Sultan of old in a garden of spice. 

For the drift of the Maker is dark, an Isis hid by the veil. 

Who knows the ways of the world, how God will bring them about? 

Our planet is one, the suns are many, the world is wide. 

Shall I weep if a Poland fall? shall I shriek if a Hungary fail? 

Or an infant civilization be ruled with rod or with knout? 

I have not made the world, and He that made it will guide. 

Be mine a philosopher's life in the quiet woodland ways. 

Where if I cannot be gay let a passionless peace be my lot, 

Far-ofFfrom the clamor of liars belied in the hubbub of lies; 

From the long-neck'd geese of the world that are ever hissing dispraise, 

Because their natures are little, and, whether he heed it or not. 

Where each man walks with his head in a cloud of poisonous flies. 

And most of all would I flee from the cruel madness of love, 
The honey of poison-flowers and all the measureless ill. 
Ah Maud, you milkwhite fawn, you are all immeet for a wife. 
Your mother is mute in her grave as her image in marble above; 
Your father is ever in London, you wander about at your will; 
You have but fed on the roses, and lain in the lilies of life. 



V. 



A VOICE by the cedar-tree 

In the meadow under the Hall! 

She is singing an air that is known to me, 

A passionate ballad gallant and gay, 

A martial song like a trumpet's call! 

Singing alone in the morning of life. 

In the happy morning of life and of May, 

Singing of men that in battle array, 

Ready in heart and ready in hand, 

March with banner and bugle and fife 

To the death, for their native land. 

Maud with her exquisite face. 
And wild voice pealing up to the sunny sky, 
And feet like sunny gems on an English green, 
Maud in the light of her youth and her grace. 
Singing of Death, and of Honor that cannot die, 



MAUD. 



521 



Till I well could weep for a time so sordid and mean, 
And myself so languid and base. 

Silence, beautiful voice! 

Be still, for you only trouble the mind 

With a joy in which I cannot rejoice, 

A glory I shall not find. 

Still! I will hear you no more, 

For your sweetness hardly leaves me a choice 

But to move to the meadow and fall before 

Her feet on the meadow grass, and adore, 

Not her, who is neither courtly nor kind, 

Not her, not her, but a voice. 



"A 



*!. 




VI. 



Morning arises stormy and pale. 

No sun, but a wannish glare 

In fold upon fold of hueless cloud. 

And the budded peaks of the wood are bow'd 

Caught and cufF'd by the gale: 

I had fancied it would be foir. 



522 MA UD. 



Whom but Maud should I meet 

Last night, when the sunset burn'd 

On the blossom 'd gable-ends 

At the head of the village street, 

Whom but Maud should I meet? 

And she touch'd my hand with a smile so sweet 

She made me divine amends 

For a courtesy not return'd. 

And thus a delicate spark 

Of glowing and growing light 

Thro' the livelong hours of the dark 

Kept itself warm in the heart of my dreams, 

Ready to burst in a color'd flame; 

Till at last, when the morning came 

In a cloud, it faded, and seems 

But an ashen-gray delight. 

What if with her sunny hair, 

And smile as sunny as cold. 

She meant to weave me a snare 

Of some coquettish deceit, 

Cleopatra-like as of old 

To entangle me when we met, 

To have her lion roll in a silken net. 

And fawn at a victor's feet. 

Ah, what shall I be at fifty 

Should Nature keep me alive. 

If I find the world so bitter 

When I am but twenty-five? 

Yet, if she were not a cheat. 

If Maud were all- that she seem'd. 

And her smile were all that I dream'd 

Then the world were not so bitter 

But a smile could inake it sweet. 

What if tho' her eye seem'd full 
Of a kind intent to me, 
What if that dandy despot, he. 
That jewell'd mass of millinery. 
That oil'd and curl'd Assyrian Bull 
Smelling of musk and of insolence. 
Her brother, from whom I keep aloof, 
Who wants the finer politic sense 



MA UD. 523 



To mask, tho' but in his own behoof, 
With a glassy smile his brutal scorn,— 
What if he had told her yestermorn 
How prettily for his own sweet sake 
A f.ice of tenderness might be feignVL, 
And a moist mirage in desert eyes. 
That so, when the rotten hustings shake 
In another month to his brazen lies, 
A wretched vote may be gain'd. 

For a raven ever croaks, at my side. 

Keep watch and ward, keep watch and ward, 

Or thou wilt prove their tool. 

Yea, too, myself from myself I guard, 

For often a man's own angrv pride 

Is cap and bells for a fool. 

Perhaps the smile and tender tone 

Came out of her pitying womanhood, 

For am I not, am I not, here alone 

So many a summer since she died, 

My mother, v^ho was so gentle and good.? 

Living alone in an empty house. 

Here half-hid in the gleaming wood. 

Where I hear the dead at midday moan. 

And the shrieking rush of the wainscot mouse. 

And my own sad name in corners cried, 

When the shiver of dancing leaves is thrown 

About its echoing chambers wide. 

Till a morbid hate and horror have grown 

Of a world in which I have hardly mixt. 

And a morbid eating lichen fixt 

On a heart half-turn' d to stone. 

O heart of stone, are you flesh, and caught 
By that you swore to w^ithstand ? 
For what was it else within me wrought 
But, I fear, the new strong wine of love. 
That made my tongue so stammer and trip 
When I saw the treasur'd splendor, her hand, 
Come sliding out of her sacred glove. 
And the sunlight broke from her lip.^' 



524 MA UD. 



I have play'd with her when a child: 

She remembers it now we meet. 

Ah well, well, well, I may be beguil'd, 

By some coquettish deceit. 

Yet, if she were not a cheat, 

If Maud were all that she seem'd, 

And her smile had all that I dream'd, 

Then the world were not so bitter 

But a smile could make it sweet. 



VII. 

Did I hear it half In a doze 

Long since, I know not where? 

Did I dream it an hour ago, 

When asleep in this arm -chair.'* 

Men were drinking together, 
Drinking and talking of me; 

" Well, if it prove a girl, the boy 
Will have plenty; so let it be." 

Is it an echo of something 

Read with a boy's delight, 
Viziers nodding together 

In some Arabian night.'' 

Strange, that I hear two men. 

Somewhere, talking of me; 
" Weil, if it prove a girl, my boy 

Will have plenty : so let it be." 

VIII. 

She came to the village church, 

And sat by a pillar alone; 

An ang-el watchinor an urn 

Wept over her, carved in stone; 

And once, but once, she lifted her eyes, 

And suddenly, sweetly, strangely blush'd 

To find they were met by my own; 

And suddenly, sweetly, my heart beat stronger 

And thicker, until I heard no longer 



MAUD. ' 525 



The snowy-banded, dilettante, 
Delicate-handed priest intone; 
And thought, is it pride, and mused and sigh'd 
" No surely, now it cannot be pride." 

IX. 

I WAS walking a mile, 
More than a mile from the shore. 
The sun look'd out with a smile 
Betwixt the cloud and the moor, 
And riding at set of da}^ 
Over the dark moor land. 
Rapidly riding far away. 
She waved to me with her hand. 
There were two at her side. 
Something flash'd in the sun, 
Down by the hill I saw them ride. 
In a moment they were gone: 
Like a sudden spark 
vStruck vainly in the night, 
And back returns the dark 
With no more hope of light. 



Sick, am I sick of a jealous dread? 
Was not one of the two at her side 
This new -made lord, whose splendor plucks 
The slavish hat from the villager's head? 
Whose old grandfather has lately died, 
Gone to a blacker pit, for Avhom 
Grimy nakedness dragging his trucks 
And laying his trams in a poison'd gloom 
Wrought, till he crept from a gutted mine, 
Master of half a servile shire. 
And left his coal all turn'd into gold 
To a grandson, first of his noble line. 
Rich in the grace all women desire. 
Strong in the power that all men adore. 
And simper and set their voices lower, 
And soften as if to a girl, and hold 
Awe-stricken breaths at a work divine, 
Seeing his gewgaw castle shine, 



526 AfA UD. 



Ne^v as his title, built last year, 
There amid perky larches and pine, 
And over the sullen-purple moor 
(Look at it) pricking a cocknex'- ear. 

What, has he found my jewel out? 
For one of the two that rode at her side 
Bound for the Hall, I am sure was he; 
Bound for the Hall, and I think for a bride. 
Blithe Avould her brother's acceptance be. 
Maud could be gracious too, no doubt, . 
To a lord, a captain, a padded shaj^e, 
A bought commission, a waxen face, 
A rabbit mouth that is ever agape — 
Bought? what is it he cannot buy? 
And therefore splenetic, personal, base, 
A wounded thing with a rancorous cry. 
At war with myself and a wretched race, 
i^ick, sick to the heart of life, am I. 

Last week came one to the county town. 
To preach our poor little army down. 
And play the game of the despot kings, 
Tho' the state has done it and thrice as well : 
This broad-brimm'd hawker of holy things. 
Whose ear is stufF'd with his cotton, and rings 
Even in dreams to the chink of his pence. 
This huckster put down war! can he tell 
W^hether war be a cause or a consequence? 
Put down the passions that make earth Hell! 
Down with ambition, avarice, pride, 
Jealousy, down! cut off from the mind 
The bitter springs of anger and fear; 
Down too, down at your own fireside. 
With the evil tongue and the evil ear, 
For each is at war with mankind. 

I v^ish I could hear again 

The chivalrous battle-song 

That she warbled alone in her joy! 

1 might persuade myself then 

She would not do herself this great wrong 

To take a wanton, dissolute boy 

For a man and leader of men. 



MA UD. 527 



Ah God, for a man with heart, head, hand, 
Like some of the simple great ones gone 
Forever and ever by, 
One still strong man in a blatant land, 
Whatever the}^ call him, v^hat care I, 
Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat, — one 
Who can rule and dare not lie. 

And ah for a man to rise in me. 
That the man I am mav cease to be! 



XI. 



LET the solid ground 
Not fail beneath my feet 

Before my life has found 

What some have found so sweet; 
Then let come v^hat come may, 
What matter If I go mad, 

1 shall have had my day. 

Let the sweet heavens endure. 
Not close and darken above me 

Before I am quite, quite sure 
That there is one to love me; 

Then let come what come may 

To a life that has been so sad, 

I shall have had my day. 

XII. 

BiRDvS in the high Hall-garden 
When twilight was falling, 

Maud, Maud, Maud, Maud, 
They were crying and calling. 

Where was Maud? in our wood; 

And I, who else, was with her, 
Gathering woodland lilies. 

Myriads blow together. 



528 



MA UD. 




Birds in our woods sang . 

Ringing thro' tlie valleys, 
Maud is here, here, here 

In among the lilies. 

I kiss'd her slender hand, 
She took the kiss sedately; 

Maud is not seventeen. 
But she is tall and stately. 

I to cry out on pride 

Who have won her favor! 

Maud w^ere sure of Heaven 
If lowliness could save her. 

1 know the way she went 

Home with her maiden posy. 
For her feet have touch'd the meadow; 
And left the daisies rosy. 



Birds in the high Hall-garden 
Were crying and calling to her, 

Where is Maud, Maud, Maud. 
One is come to woo her. 



MA UD. 529 



Look, a horse at the door, 

And Httle King Charles is snarhng. 
Go back, my lord, across the moor, 

You are not her darlinsr. 



XIII. 



Scorn'd, to be scorn'd by one that I scorn, 
Is that a matter to make me fret? 
That a calamity hard to be borne? 
Well, he may live to hate me 3'et. 

Fool that I am to be vext with his pride ! 

I past him, I was crossing his lands: 

He stood on the path, a little aside; 

His face, as I grant, in spite of spite. 

Has a broad-blown comeliness, red and white, 

And six feet two, as I think, he stands; 

But his essence turn'd the live air sick. 

And barbarous opulence jewel-thick 

Sunn'd itself on his breast and bis hands. 

Who shall call me ungentle, unfair, 
I long'd so heartily then and there 
To give him the grasp of fellowship; 
But while I past he was humming an air, 
vStopt, and then with a riding whip 
Leisurely tapping a glossy boot 
And curving a contumelious lip, 
Gorgonized me from head to foot 
With a stony British stare. 

Why sits he here in his father's chair? 
That old man never conies to his place: 
Shall I believe him asham'd to be seen? 
For onlv once, in the village street. 
Last year I caught a glimpse of his ftice, 
A gray old w^olf and a lean. 
Scarcely, now, would I call him a cheat; 
For then, perhaps, as a child of deceit, 
She might by a true descent be untrue; 
And Maud is as true as Maud is sweet; 
Tho' I fanc}^ her sweetness only due 



34 



530 MA UD. 



To the sweeter blood by the other side; 
Her mother has been a thing- complete, 
However she came to be so allied. 
And fair v\dthout, faithful within, 
Maud to him is nothing akin: 
Some peculiar mystic grace 
Made her only the child of her mother. 
And heap'd the whole inherited sin 
On that huge scapegoat of the race, 
All, all upon the brother. 

Peace, angry spirit, and let him be! 
Has not his sister smiled on me? 



XIV. 

Maud has a garden of roses 
And lilies fair on a lawn; 
There she walks in her state 
Ai 'I tends upon bed and bower. 
Arid thither I climb'd at dawn 
And stood by her garden-gate; 
A lion ramps at the top, 
He is claspt by a passion flower. 

Maud's own little oak-room 

(Which Maud, like a precious stone 

Set in the heart of the carven gloom. 

Lights with herself, when alone 

She sits by her music and books. 

And her brother lingers late 

With a roistering company) looks 

Upon Maud's own garden-gate: 

And I tliought as I stood, if a hand, as white 

As ocean-foam in the moon, were laid 

On the hasp of the window, and my Delight 

Had a sudden desire, like a glorious ghost, to glide. 

Like a beam of the seventh Heaven, down to my side, 

There were but a step to be made. 

The fancy flatter'd my mind. 

And again seem'd overbold; 

Now I thought that she cared for me. 



MAUD. 



531 



Now T thought she was kind 
Only because she was cold. 

I heard no sound where I stood 

But the rivulet on from the lawn 

Running down to my own dark ^vood ; 

Or the voice of the long sea-wave as it swell'( 




Now and then in the dim-gray dawn; 

But I look'd, and round, all round the house I beheld 

The death-white curtain drawn; 

Felt a horror over me creep, 

Prickle my skin and catch my breath. 

Knew that the death-white curtain meant but sleep, 

Yet I shudder'd and thought like a fool of the sleep of death. 



XV. 



So dark a mind within me dwells, 
And I make myself such evil cheei*, 

That if I be dear to some one else. 

Then some one else may have much to fear; 

But if / be dear to some one else, 

Then I should be to myself more dear. 

Shall I not take care of all that I think. 

Yea ev'n of wretched meat and drink, 

If I be dear. 

If I be dear to some one else? 



532 MA UD. 



XVI. 



This lump of earth has left his estate 

The lighter by the loss of his weight; 

And so that he find what he went to seek, 

And fulsome Pleasure clog him, and drown 

His heart in the gross mud-honey of town, 

He may stay for a year who has gone for a week 

But this is the da}^ when I must speak, 

And I see my Oread coming down, 

O this is the day! 

beautiful creature, what am I 
That I dare to look her way; 
Think I may hold dominion sweet. 

Lord of the pulse that is lord of her breast. 
And dream of her beaut)'- with tender dread. 
From the delicate Arab arch of her feet 
To the grace that, bright and light as the crest 
Of a peacock, sits on her shining head. 
And she knows it not: O, if she knew it. 
To know her beauty might half undo it. 

1 know it the one bright thing to save 
My yet young life in the wnlds of Time, 
Perhaps from madness, perhaps from crime. 
Perhaps from a selfish grave. 

What, if she were fasten'd to this fool lord 

Dare I bid her abide by her word ? 

Should I love her so well if she 

Had given her word to a thing so low ? 

Shall I love her as well as if she 

Can break her word were it even for me? 

I trust that it is not so. 

Catch not my breath, O clamorous heart. 
Let not my tongue be a thrall to my eye. 
For I must tell her before we part, 
I must tell her, or die. 

XVII. 

Go NOT, happy day. 

From the shining fields, 



MAUD. 533 



Go not, happy day, 

Till the maiden yields. 
Rosy is the West, 

Rosy is the South, 
Roses are her cheeks, 

And a rose her mouth. 
When the happy Yes 

Falters from her lips. 
Pass and blush the news 

O'er the blowing ships, 
Over blowing seas. 

Over seas at rest. 
Pass the happy news, 

Blush it thro' the West, 
Till the red man dance 

By his red cedar-tree. 
And the red man's babe 

Leap, beyond the sea. 
Blush from West to East, 

Blush from East to West, 
Till the West is East, 

Blush it thro' the West. 
Rosy is the W^est, 

Rosy is the South, 
Roses are her cheeks, 

And a rose her mouth. 

XVIII. 

I HAVE led her home, my love, my only friend. 

There is none like her, none. 

And never yet so warmly ran my blood 

And sweetly, on and on 

Calming itself to the long-wish'd for end. 

Full to the banks, close on the promis'd good. 

None like her, none; 

Just now the dry-tongued laurel's pattering talk, 

Seem'd her light foot along the garden walk, 

And shook my heart to think she comes once more; 

But even then I heard her close the door. 

The gates of Heaven are cloj-ed, and she is gone. 

There is none like her, none. 

Nor will be when our summers have deceas'd. 



534 MA UD. 



O, art thou sighing for Lehanoii 

In the long breeze that streams to thy dehcious East, 

Sighing for Lebanon, 

Dark cedar, tho' thy Hmbs have here increase!, 

Upon a pastoral slope as fair, 

And looking to the South, and fed 

With honeyVl rain and delicate air, 

And haunted by the starry head 

Of her whose gentle will has changed my fate. 

And made my life a perfum'd altar-flarnc; 

And over whom thy darkness must have spread 

With such delight as theirs of old, thy great 

Forefathers of the thornless garden, there 

Shadowing the snow-limb'd Eve from ^vhom she came, 



Here will I lie, while these long branches swav. 

And you fair stars that crown a happy dav 

Go in and out as if at merry play. 

Who am no more so all forlorn, 

As when it seem'd far better to be born 

To labor and the mattock-harden'd hand, 

Than nurs'd at ease and brought to understand 

A sad astrology, the boundless plan, 

That makes you tyrants in your iron skies, 

Innumerable, pitiless, passionless eyes. 

Cold fires, yet with power to burn and brand 

His nothingness into man. 

But now shine on, and what care I, 

Who in this stormy gulf have found a pearl 

The countercharm of space and hollow sky, 

And do accept my madness and would die 

To save from some slight shame one simple girl. 

Would die; for sullen seeming Death may give 

More life to Love than is or ever was 

In our low world, where yet 'tis sweet to live, 

Let no one ask me how it came to pass; 

It seems that I am happy, that to me 

A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass, 

A purer sapphire melts into the sea. 

Not die; but live a life of truest breath. 

And teach true life to fight \vith mortal wrongs. 



MA UD. 535 



O, why should Love, like men in drinking-songs, 

Spice his fair banquet with the dust of death ? 

Make answer, Maud my bliss. 

Maud made my Maud by that long lover's kiss, 

Life of my life, wilt thou not answer this? 

" The dusky strand of Death inwoven here 

With dear Love's tie, makes Love himself more dear," 

Is that enchanted moan only the swell 

Of the long waves that roll, in j^onder bay? 

And hark the clock within, the silver knell 

Of twelve sweet hours that past in bridal white. 

And died to live, long as my pulses J^lay; 

But now by this my love has closed her sight 

And giv'n false death her hand, and stol'n away 

To dreamful wastes where footless fancies dwell 

Among the fragments of the golden day. 

May nothing there her maiden grace affright! 

Dear heart, I feel with thee the drowsy spell. 

My bride to be, my evermore delight. 

My own heart's heart and ownest own, farewell; 

It is but for a little space I go: 

And ye meanwhile far over moor and fell 

Beat to the noiseless music of the night! 

Has our whole earth gone nearer to the glow 

Of your soft splendors that you look so bright? 

/ have climb'd nearer out of lonely Hell. 

Beat, happy stars, timing with things below, 

Beat with my heart more blest than heart can tell, 

Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe 

That seems to draw — but it shall not be so: 

Let all be well, be well. 



XIX. 

Her brother is coming back to-night, 
Breaking up my dream of delight. 

My dream? do I dream of bliss? 
I have walk'd awake with Truth. 
O when did a morning shine 
So rich in atonement as this 
For my dark-dawning youth, 



536 MA UD. 



Darken'd watching a mother decline 
And that dead man at her heart and mine: 
For wlio was left to watch her but I? 
Yet so did I let my freshness die. 

I trust that I did not talk 

To gentle Maud in our walk. 

(For often in lonely wanderings 

I have cursed him even to lifeless things) 

But I trust that I did not talk, 

Not touch on her father's sin: 

I am sure I did but speak 

Of ni}^ mother's faded cheek 

When it slowly grew so thin, 

That I felt she was slowly d^dng 

Vext with lawyers and harass'd with debt: 

For how often I caught her with eyes all wet, 

Shaking her head at her son and sighing 

A world of trouble within! 

And Maud too, Maud was moved 

To speak of the mother she loved 

As one scarce less forlorn. 

Dying abroad and it seems apart 

From him who had ceased to share her heart, 

And ever mourning over the feud, 

The household Fury sprinkled with blood 

By which our houses are torn ; 

How strange was what she said, 

When only Maud and the brother 

Hung over her dying bed, — 

That Maud's dark father and mine 

Had bound us one to the other, 

Betroth'd us over their wine 

On the day when Maud was born; 

Seal'd her mine from her first sweet breath. 

Mine, mine by a right, from birth till death. 

Mine, mine — our fathers have sv/orn. 

But the true blood spilt had in it a heat 
To dissolve the precious seal on a bond, 
That, if left uncancell'd, had been so sweet: 
And none of us thought of a something beyond, 
A desire that awoke in the heart of the child. 



MA UD. 537 



As it were a duty done to the tomb, 
To be friends for her sake, to be reconciled; 
And I was cursing them and my doom, 
And letting a dangerous thought run wild 
While often abroad in the fragrant gloom 
Of foreign churches — I see her there. 
Bright English lily, breathing a prayer 
To be friends, to be reconciled! 

But then what a flint is he! 

Abroad, at Florence, at Rome, 

I find whenever she touchVl on me 

This brother had laugh'd her down. 

And at last, when each came home, 

He had darken' d into a frown, 

Chid her, and forbid her to speak 

To me, her friend of the years before; 

And this was what had redden'd her cheek, 

When I bow'd to her on the moor. 



Yet Maud, altho' not blind 

To the faults of his heart and mind, 

I see she cannot but love him. 

And says he is rougli but kind, 

And wishes me to approve him. 

And tells me, when she lay 

Sick once, v^ith a fear of worse. 

That he left his wine and horses and play, 

Sat with her, read to her, night and day. 

And tended her like a nurse. 



Kind? but the death-bed desire 
Spurn'd by this heir of the liar — 
Rough but kind? yet I know 
He has plotted against me in this. 
That he plots against me still. 
Kind to Maud? that were not amiss, 
Well, rough but kind; why, let it be so; 
For shall not Maud have her will? 

For, Maud, so tender and true. 
As long as my life endures 
I feel I shall owe you a debt. 



538 MA UD. 



That I never can hope to pay; 
And if ever I should forget 
That I owe this debt to you 
And for your sweet sake to yours; 

then, what then shall I say? 
If ever I should forget, 

May God make me more wretched 
Than ever I have been yet! 

So now I have sworn to bury 
All this dead body of hate, 

1 feel so free and so clear 

B}^ the loss of that dead weight. 

That I should grow^ light-headed, I fear. 

Fantastically merry; 

But that her brother comes, like a blight 

On my fresh hope, to the Hall to-night. 



Strange, that I felt so gay, 
Strange, that / tried to-day 
To beguile her melancholy ; 
The Sultan, as we name him, 
She did not wish to blame him — 
But he vext her and perplext her 
With his worldly talk and folly : 
Was it gentle to reprove her 
For stealing out of view 
From a little lazy lover 
Who but claims her as his due? 
Or for chilling his caresses, 
By the coldness of her manners. 
Nay, the plainness of her dresses? 
Now 1 know her but in two. 
Nor can pronounce upon it 
If one should ask me whether 
The habit, hat, and feather, 
Or the frock and gypsy bonnet 
Be the neater and completer; 
For nothing can be sweeter 
Than maiden Maud in either. 



MA UD. 539 



Rut to-morrow, if we live, 
Our ponderous squire will give 
A grand political dinner 
To half the squirelings near; 
And Maud will wear her jewels, 
And the bird of prey will hover, 
And the titmouse hope to win her 
With his chirrup at her ear. 

A grand political dinner 

To the men of many acres, 

A gathering of the Tory, 

A dinner and then a dance 

For the maids and marriage- makers. 

And every eye but mine will glance 

At Maud in all her glory. 

For I am not invited, 
But, with the Sultan's pardon, 
I am all as well delighted. 
For I know her own rose-garden. 
And mean to linger in it 
Till the dancing vs^ill be over; 
And then, O then, come out to me 
For a minute, but for a minute, 
Come out to your own true lover. 
That your true lover may see 
Your glory also, and render 
All homage to his own darling. 
Queen Maud in all her splendor. 

XXI. 



Rivulet crossing my ground. 
And bringing me down from the Hall 
This garden-rose that I found. 
Forgetful of Maud and me, 
And lost in trouble and moving round 
Here at the head of a tinkling fall. 
And trying to pass to the sea; 
O Rivulet, born at the Hall, 
My Maud has sent it by thee 
(If I read her sweet will right) 



540 



MA UD. 



On a blushing mission to me, 
Saying- in odor and color, " Ah, be 
Amonof the roses to-nigrht." 



XXII. 

Come into the garden, Maud, 

For the black bat, night, has flown. 

Come into the garden, Maud, 
I am here at the gate alone; 




And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, 
And the musk of the roses blo\vn. 

For a breeze of morning moves. 

And the planet of Love is on high. 

Beginning to faint in the light that she loves 
On a bed of daifodil sky, 

To faint in the light of the sun she loves, 
To faint in his light, and to die. 



All night have the roses heard 

The flute, violin, bassoon; 
All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd 

To the dancers dancing in tune; 
Till a silence fell with the waking bird. 

And a hush with the setting moon. 



I said to the lily, " There is but one 
With v^diom she has heart to be gay. 



MA UD, 541 



When will the dancers leave her alone? 

She is weary of dance and play." 
Now half to the setting moon are gone, 

And half to the rising day ; 
Low on the sand and loud on the stone 

The last wheel echoes awav. 



I said to the rose, " The brief night goes 

In babble and revel and ^vine. 
O young lord-lover, what sighs are those, 

For one that will never be thine? 
But mine, but mine," so I sware to the rose, 

" Forever and ever, mine." 

And the soul of the rose went into m}^ blood. 

As the music clash'd in the hall ; 
As long by the garden lake I stood. 

For I heard your rivulet fall 
From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood. 

Our wood, that is dearer than all; 

From the meadow your walks have left so sweet 
That whenever a March-wind sighs 

He sets the jewel-print of your feet 
In violets blue as your eyes. 

To the woody hollows in which we meet 
And the valleys of Paradise. 

The slender acacia would not shake 

One long milk-bloom on the tree; 
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake. 

As the pimpernel dozed on the lea; 
But the rose was awake all night for your sake. 

Knowing your promise to me; 
The lilies and roses were all awake. 

They sigh'd for the dawn and thee. 

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls, 

Come hither, the dances are done. 
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls. 

Queen lily and rose in one; 
Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls. 

To the flowers, and be their son. 



542 MA UD. 



There has fallen a splendid tear 

Froni the passion-flower at the gate. 
She is coming, my dove, my dear; 

She is coming, my life, my fate; 
The red rose cries, " She is near, she is near; 

And the white rose \^'eeps, " She is late; " 
The larkspur listens, " I hear, I hear;" 

And the lily \vhispers, '• I wait." 

She is coming, my own, my swee^ 

Were it ever so airy a tread. 
My heart would hear her and beat. 

Were it earth in an earthy bed; 
My dust would hear her and beat. 

Had I lain for a century dead ; 
Would start and tremble under her feet, 

And blossom in purple and redo 



" The fault was mine, the ftiult was mine " — 

Whv am I sitting here so stunn'd and still, 

Plucking the harmless wild-flow^er on the hill?- 

It is this guilty hand I — 

And there rises ever a passionate cry 

From underneath in the darkening land — 

What is it, that has been done? 

O dawn of Eden bright over earth and sky. 

The fires of Hell brake out of thy ri.sing sun, 

The fires of Hell and of Hate; 

For she, sweet soul, had hardly spoken a \vord, 

When her brother ran in his rage to the gate, 

He came with the babe-faced lord; 

Heap'd on her terms of disgrace. 

And while she wept, and I strove to be cool. 

He fiercely gave me the lie. 

Till I with as fierce an anger spoke. 

And he struck me, madman, over the face, 

Struck me before the languid fool, 

Who was gaping and grinning by; 

Struck for himself an evil stroke: 

Wrought for his house an irredeemable ^voe; 

For front to front in an hour' we stood, 

And a million horrible bellowins;- echoes broke 



MAUD. 543 



From the red-ribb'd hollow behind the \vood, 

And thunder'd up into Heaven the Christless code, 

That must have life for a blow^. 

Ever and ever afresh they seem'd to grow. 

Was it he lay there with a fading e3^e? 

«' The fault was mine," he whisper'd, " fly ! " 

Then glided out of the joyous w^ood 

The ghastly Wraith of one that I know; 

And there rang on a sudden a passionate cry, 

A cry for a brother's blood: 

It will ring in my heart and niy ears, till I die, till I die« 

Is it gone? my pulses beat — 

What was it? a lying trick of the brain? 

Yet I thought I saw her stand, 

A shadow there at my feet, 

High over the shadowy land. 

It is gone; and the heavens fall in a gentle rain, 

When they should burst and drown with deluging storms 

The feeble vassals of wine and anger and lust. 

The little hearts that know not how to forgive; 

Arise, my God, and strike, for we hold Thee just. 

Strike dead the whole w^eak race of venomous worms, 

That sting each other here in the dust; 

We are not Avorthv to live. 



XXIV. 



See what a lovely shell, 
Small and pure as a pearl. 
Lying close to my foot, 
Frail, but a work divine, 
Made so fairil}' well 
With delicate spire and v/horl, 
How exquisitely minute, 
A miracle of design! 

What is it? a learned man 
Could give it a clumsy name. 
Let him name it who can. 
The beauty would be the same. 



544 MA UD. 



The tin}^ cell is forlorn, 
Void of the little living will 
That made it stir on the shore. 
Did he stand at the diamond door 
Of his house in a rainbow frill? 
Did he push, when he was uncurPd, 
A golden foot or a fairy horn 
Thro' his dim water- world? 

Slight, to be crush'd with a tap 
Of my finger-nail on the sand, 
Small, but a work divine. 
Frail, but of force to withstand, 
Year upon year, the shock 
Of cataract seas that snap 
The three-decker's oaken spine 
Athwart the ledges of rock. 
Here on the Breton strand! 

Breton, not Briton; here 

Like a shipwreck'd man on a coast 

Of ancient fable and fear, 

Plagued with a flitting to and fro, 

A disease, a hard mechanic ghost 

That never came from on high 

Nor never arose from below. 

But only moves with the moving eye, 

Flying along the land and the main, 

Why should it look like Maud? 

Am I to be overawed 

By what I cannot but know 

Is a juggle born of the brain? 

Back from the Breton coast, 

Sick of a nameless fear. 

Back to the dark sea-line, 

Looking, thinking of all I have lost; 

An old song vexes my ear; 

But that of Lamech is mine. 

For years, a measureless ill, 
For years, forever, to part,-— 
But she, she would love me still; 



MA UD. 545 



And as lonor, O God, as she 
Have a grain of love for me, 
So long, no doubt, no doubt. 
Shall L nurse in my dark heart, 
However w^eary, a spark of v^ill 
Not to be trampled out. 

Strange, that the mind, when fraught 

With a passion so intense 

One would think that it well 

Might drown all life in the eye, — 

That it should, by being so overwrought, 

Suddenl}' strike on a sliarper sense 

For a shell, or a flower, little things 

Which else would have been past by! 

And now I remember, I, 

When he lay dying there, 

I noticed one of his inany rings 

(For he had many, poor worm,) and thought 

It is his mother's hair. 

Who knows if he be dead? 

Whether I need have fled? 

Am I guilty of blood? 

However this may be. 

Comfort her, comfort her, all things good, 

While I am over the sea! 

Let me and my passionate love go by. 

But speak to her all things holy and high, 

Whatever happen to me! 

Me and my harmful love go by; 

But come to her waking, find her asleep. 

Powers of the height. Powers of the deep, 

And comfort her tho' I die. 

XXV. 

Courage, poor heart of stone! 

I will not ask thee why 

Thou canst not understand 

That thou art left forever alone: 

Courage, poor stupid heart of stone. — 

Or if I ask thee why, 

Care not thou to reply: 



35 



546 MAUD. 



She is but dead, and the time is at hand 
When thou shalt more than die. 



XXVI. 

O THAT 'twere possible 

After long grief and pain 

To find the arms of my true love 

Round me once again ! 

When I was wont to meet her 
In the silent woody places 
By the home that gave me birth, 
We stood tranc'd in long embraces 
Mixt with kisses sweeter, sweeter 
Than anything on earth. 

A shadow flits before me, 

Not thou, but like to thee; 

Ah Christ, that it were possible 

For one short hour to see 

The souls we loved, that they might tell us 

What and where thev be. 



It leads me forth at evening. 

It lightly winds and steals 

In a cold white robe before me, 

When all my spirit reels 

At the shouts, the leagues of lights. 

And the roaring of the wheels. 

Half the night I waste in sighs, 
Half in dreams I sorrow after 
The delight of early skies; 
In a wakeful doze I sorrow 
For the hand, the lips, the eyes. 
For the meeting of the morrow. 
The delight of happy laughter, 
The delight of low replies. 

"'TIS a morning pure and sweet. 
And a dewy splendor falls 



MA UD. 547 



On the little flower that clings 
To the turrets and the A^^alls; 
'Tis a morning pure and sweet, 
And the lioht and shadow fleet; 
She is walking in the meadow^, 
And the woodland echo rings; 
In a moment we shall meet: 
She is singing in the meadow, 
And the rivulet at her feet 
Ripples on in light and shadow 
To the ballad that she sing-s. 



Do I hear her sing as of old. 

My bird with the shining head, 

My own dove with the tender eye? 

But there rings on a sudden a passionate cry 

There is some one dying or dead, 

And a sullen thunder is roll'd; 

For a tumult shakes the city. 

And I wake, my dream is fled; 

In the shuddering dawn, behold. 

Without knowledge, without pity. 

By the curtains of mv bed 

That abiding phantom cold. 

Get thee hence, nor come again, 
Mix not memory with doubt. 
Pass, thou deathlike type of pain. 
Pass and cease to move about, 
'Tis the blot upon the brain 
That ivill show itself without. 

Then I rise, the eavedrops fall, 
And the yellow vapors choke 
The great citv sounding wide; 
The day comes, a dull red ball 
Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke 
On the misty river-tide. 

Thro' the hubbub of the market 

I steal, a wasted frame. 

It crosses here, it crosses there, 

Thro' all that crowd confused and loud, 

The shadow still the same: 



548 



A/A UD. 



And on thy heavy eyehds 
My anguish hangs like shame. 

Alas for her that met me, 
That heard me softly call, 
Came glimmering thro' the laurels 
At the quiet evenfall, 




In the garden by the turrets 
Of the old manorial hall. 

Would the happy spiiit descend, 
From the realms of light and song, 
In the chamber or the street. 
As she looks among the blest. 
Should I fear to greet my fiiend 
Or to say "forgive the wrong," 
Or to ask her, " take me, sweet, 
To the regions of thy rest? " 



But the broad light glares and beats, 
And the shadow flits and fleets 
And will not let me be; 



MA UD. 549 



And I loathe the squares and streets, 
And the faces that one meets, 
Hearts with no love for me: 
Always I lonjy to creep 
into some still cavern deep, 
There to weep, and vs^eep, and weep 
My whole soul out to thee. 

xxvir. 

Dead, long dead, 

Long dead ! 

And my heart is a handful of dust. 

And the wheels go over my head. 

And my bones are shaken with pain, 

For into a shallow grave they are thrust. 

Only a yard beneath the street, 

And the hoofs of the horses beat, beat. 

The hoofs of the horses beat, 

Beat into my scalp and my brain. 

With never an end to the stream of passing feet, 

Driving, hurrying, marrying, burying, 

Clamor and rumble, and ringing and clatter, 

And here beneath it is all as bad, 

For I thought the dead had peace, but it is not so; 

To have no peace in the grave, is that not sad? 

But up and down and to and fro. 

Ever about me the dead men go; 

And then to hear a dead man chatter 

Is enough to drive one mad. 

Wretchedest age, since Time began. 

They cannot even bury a man; 

And tho' we paid our tithes in the days that are gone. 

Not a bell was rung, not a prayer was read; 

It is that \vhich makes us loud in the world of the dead; 

There is none that does his work, not one; 

A touch of their office might have sufficed. 

But the churchmen fain v/ould kill their church, 

As the churches have kill'd their Christ. 

See, there is one of us sobbing. 

No limit to his distress; 

And another, a lord of all things, praying 



550 MA UD. 



To his own great self, as I guess; 

And another, a statesman there, betraying 

His party-secret, fool, to the press; 

And yonder a yile physician, babbling 

The case of his patient, — all for what? 

To tickle the maggot born in an empty head, 

And ^vheedle a world that loyes him not. 

For it is but a \yorld of the dead. 

Nothing but idiot gabble! 

For the prophecy given of old 

Auvl then not understood. 

Has come to pass as foretold; 

Not let any man think for the public good, 

But babble, merely for babble. 

For I neyer whisper'd a private affair 

Within the hearing of cat or mouse, 

No, not to myself in the closet alone. 

But I heard it shouted at once from the top of the house; 

Everything came to be known: 

Who told Jiiin we \yere there? 



Not that gray old wolf, for he came not back 
From the wilderness, full of wolves, where he used to lie; 
He has gather'd the bones for his o'ergrown whelp to crack; 
Crack them no^y for yourself, and hovvd, and die. 

Prophet, curse me the babbling lip. 

And curse me the British verinin, the rat; 

I know not whether he came in the Hanover ship, 

But I know that he lies and listens mute 

In an ancient mansion's crannies and holes: 

Arsenic, arsenic, sure, would do it, 

Except that now ^ve poison our babes, poor souls! 

It is all used up for that. 

Tell him no^v: she is standing here at my head; 

Not beautiful now, not even kind ; 

He may take her now ; for she never speaks her mind. 

But is ever the one thing silent here. 

She is not of us, as I divine; 

She comes from another stiller world of the dead. 

Stiller, not fairer than mine. 



MA UD. 551 



But I know where a garden grows, 

Fairer than aught in the world beside; 

All made up of the lily and rose 

That blow by night, when the season is good, 

To the sound of dancing music and flutes: 

It is only flowers, they had no fruits. 

And I almost fear they are not roses, but blood; 

For the keeper was one, so full of pride. 

He linkt a dead man there to a spectral bride; 

For he, if he had not been a Sultan of brutes, 

Would he have that hole in his side? 

But what will the old man say? 

He laid a cruel snare in a pit 

To catch a friend of mine one stormy day; 

Yet now T could even weep to think of it; 

For what will the old man say 

When he comes to the second corjjse in the pit? 

Friend, to be struck by the public foe. 
Then to strike him and lay him low. 
That were a public merit, far, 
Whatever the Quaker holds, from sin; 
But the red life sj^ilt for a private blow — 
I swear to you, lawful and lawless war 
Are scarcely even akin. 

me, why have they not buried me deep enough? 
Is it kind to have made me a grave so rough. 
Me, that w^as never a quiet sleeper? 

Ma3'be still I am but half-dead; 
Then I cannot be wholly dumb; 

1 will cry to the steps above my head. 

And somebody, surely, some kind heart will come 
To bury me, bury me 
Deeper, ever so little deeper. 

XXVIII. 

My life has crept so long on a broken wing 
Thro' cells of madness, haunts of horror and fear, 
That I come to be grateful at last for a little thing: 
My mood is changed, for it fell at a time of year 



552 MA UD. 



When the face of the night is fair on the dewy downs, 

And the shining daffodil dies, and the Charioteer 

And starry Gemini hang like glorious crowns 

Over Orion's grave low down in the west. 

That like a silent lightning under the stars 

She seem'd to divide in a dream from a band of the blest, 

And spoke of a hope for the world in the coming wars — 

"And in that hope, dear soul, let trouble have rest. 

Knowing I tarry for thee," and pointed to Mars 

As he glowed like a ruddy shield on the Lion's breast. 

And it was but a dream, yet it yielded a dear delight 

To have looked, tho' but in a dream, upon eyes so fair, 

That had been in a weary world my one thing bright; 

And it was but a dream, yet it lighten'd my despair 

When I thought that a war would arise in defence of the right, 

That an iron tyranny now should bend or cease. 

The glory of manhood stand on his ancient height. 

Nor Britain's one sole God be the millionaire: 

No more shall commerce be all in all, and Peace 

Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid note. 

And watch her harvest ripen, her herd increase, 

Nor the cannon-bullet rust on a slothful shore, 

And the cobweb woven across the cannon's throat 

Shall shake its threaded tears in the wind no more. 

And as months ran on and rumor of battle grew, 

" It is time, it is time, O passionate heart," said I 

(For I cleav'd to a cause that I felt to be pure and true), 

" It is time, O passionate heart and morbid eye. 

That old hysterical mock-disease should die." 

And I stood on a giant deck and mixed my breath 

With a loyal people shouting a battle-cry. 

Till I saw the dreary phantom arise and fly 

Far into the North, and battle, and seas of death. 

Let it go or stay, so I wake to the higher aims 

Of a land that has lost for a little her lust of gold, 

And love of a peace that was full of wrongs and shames, 

Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told ; 

And hail once more to the banner of battle unroll'd! 

Tho' many a light'shall darken, and many shall \veep 

For those that are crush'd in the clash of jarring claims, 

Yet God's just wrath shall be wreak'd on a giant liar; 



MAUD. 



553 



And many a darkness into the light shall leap, 
And shine in the sudden making of splendid names, 
And noble thought be freer under the sun, 
And the heart of a people beat with one desire; 
For the peace, that I deemed no peace, is over and done. 
And now by the side of the Black and the Baltic deep, 
And deathful-o-rinninof mouths of the fortress flames 
The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire. 

Let it flame or fade, and the war roll down like a wind, 

We have proved we have hearts in a cause, we are noble still, 

And myself have awaked, as it seems, to the better mind; 

It is better to fight for the good, than to rail at the ill; 

I have felt with my native land, I nm one with my kind, 

I embrace the purpose of God, and the doom assign'd. 




554 



THE BROOK. 




THE BROOK. 



AN IDYL. 




^ERE, by this brook, we parted; I to the East 
And he for Italy — -too late — too late: 
One whom the stron_2^ sons of the world despise 
For lucky rh^•mes to him were scrip and share, 
And mellow metres more than cent lor cent; 
Nor could he understand how money breeds. 
Thought is a dead thing; yet himself could make 
The thing: that is not as the thino- that is. 
O had he lived! In our school-books we say, 
Of those that held their heads above the crowd, 
They flourish'd then or then; but life in him 
Could scarce be said to flourish, only touch'd 
On such a time as goes before the leaf, 
When all the wood stands in a mist of green, 
And nothing perfect: yet the book he loved. 
For which, in branding summers of Bengal, 



THE BROOK. 



555 



Or ev'ii the sweet half-English Neilgherry air, 

I panted, seems, as I re-listen to it, 

Prattling the primrose fancies of the bov, 

To me that loved him; for 'O brook,' he savs, 

' O babbling brook,' says Edmund in his rhyme, 

'Whence come you;' and the brook, why not? replies. 




I come from haunts of coot and hern, 

I make a sudden sally 
And sparkle out among the fern 

To bicker down a vallev. 



By thirty hills I hurry down, 
Or slip between the ridges, 

By twenty thorps, a little town, 
And half a hundred bridg-es. 



Till last by Philip's farm I flow 
To join the brimming river, 

For men may come and men may go, 
But I go on fcre^'er. 



556 



THE BROOK. 



" Poor lad, he died at Florence, quite worn out, 
Travelling to Naples. There is Darnley bridge. 
It has more ivy; there the river; and there 
Stands Philip's farm where brook and river meet. 



-.'■M^ 




I chatter over stony ways, 
In little sharps and trebles, 

I bubble into eddying bays, 
I babble on the pebbles, 

With many a curve my banks I fret 
By many a field and fallow, 

And many a fairy foreland set 
With willow weed and mallow. 



I chatter, chatter, as I flow 
To join the brimining river. 

For men may come and men may go. 
But I gfo on forever. 



"-But Philip chatter'd more than brook or bird; 
Old Philip; all about the fields you caught 



THE BROOK. ' 557 



His weary daylong chirping, like the dry 
High-elbow'd grigs that leap in summer grass. 



I wind about, and in and out, 
With here a blossom sailing. 

And here and there a lusty trout. 
And here and there a gravling. 

And liere and there a foamy flake 

Upon me, as 1 travel 
With many a silvery waterbreak 

Above the golden gravel, 



And draw them all along, and flow 
To join the brimming river, 

For men may come and men may go, 
But I go on forever. 



" O darling Katie Willows, his one child! 
A maiden of our century, yet most meek; 
A daughter of our meadows, yet not coarse; 
Straight, but as lissome as a hazel wand ; 
Her e_ves a bashful azure, and her hair 
In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell 
Divides threefold to show the fruit within. 

" Sweet Katie, once I did her a good turn. 
Her and her far-off cousin and betrothed, 
James Willows, of one name and heart with her. 
For here I came, twenty years back, — the week 
Before I parted with poor Edmund; crost 
By that old bridge which, half in ruins then, 
Still makes a hoary eyebrow for the gleam 
Beyond it, where the waters marry — crost, 
Whistling a random bar of Bonny Doon, 
And push'd at Philip's garden-gate. The gate, 
Half-parted from a weak and scolding hinge, 
Stuck; and he clamoi'd from a casement, 'Run ' 
To Katie somewhere in the walks below. 
'Run, Katie!' Katie never ran: she moved 
To meet me, winding under woodbine bowers, 
A little flutter'd ^vith her eyelids down, 
Fresh apple blossom, blushing for a boon. 



558 THE BROOK. 



" What was it? less of sentiment tlian sense 
Had Katie; not illiterate; neither one 
Who dabblino- in the fount of fictive tears, 
And nursed by mealy-mouthed philanthropies. 
Divorce the Feeling from her mate the Deed. 

" She told me. She and James had quarrell'd. Why? 
What cause of quarrel? None, she said, no cause; 
James had no cause: but when I prest the cause, 
I learnt that James had flickering jealousies 
Which anger'd her. Who anger'd James? I said. 
But Katie snatch'd her eyes at once from mine, 
And sketching with her slender-pointed foot 
Some figure like a wizard's pentagram 
On garden gravel, let my query pass 
Unclaim'd, in flushing silence, till I ask'd 
If James were coming. ' Coming everj^ day,' 
She answer'd, ' ever longing to explain. 
But evermore her father came across 
W^ith some long-winded tale, and broke him short; 
And James departed vext with him and her.' 
How could I help her? ' Would I — was it wrong? ' 
(Claspt hands and that petitionary grace 
Of sweet seventeen subdued me ere she spoke) 
' O would I take her father for one hour. 
For one half-hour, and let him talk to me!' 
And even while she spoke, I saw ^where James 
Made towards us, like a wader in the surf. 
Beyond the brook, waist-deep in meadow-swee-t. 

" O Katie, what I sufFer'd for your sake! 
For I went in and call'd old Philip out 
To show the farm : full willingly he rose: 
He led me through the short sweet-smelling lanes 
Of his wheat suburb, babbling as he went. 
He praised his land, his horses, his machines; 
He praised his ploughs, his cows, his hogs, his dogs: 
He praised his hens, his geese, his guinea-hens; 
His pigeons, who in session on their roofs 
Approved him, bowing at their own deserts; 
Then from the plaintive mother's teat, he took 
Her blind and shuddering puppies, naming each. 
And naming those, his friends, for whom they were; 
Then crost the common into Darnlev chase 



THE BROOK 



559 




To show Sir Arthur's deer. In copse and fern 

Twinkled the innumerable ear and tail. 

Then, seated on a serpent-rooted beech, 

He pointed out a pasturing colt, and said : 

' That was the four-year-old I sold the Squire.' 

And there he told a long, long-winded tale 

Of how the Squire had seen the colt at grass. 

And how it was the thing his daughter wish'd, 

And how he sent the bailiff to the farm 

To learn the price, and what the price lie ask'd. 

And how the bailiff swore that he was mati. 

But he stood firm; and so the matter hung; 

He gave them line; and fiv^e davs after that 

He met the bailiff at the Golden Fleece, 

Who then and there had offer'd something more. 

But he stood firm; and so the matter hung; 

He knew the man; the colt woukl fetch its price; 

He gave them line; and how by chance at last 

(It might be May or April, he forgot. 

The last of April or the first of May) 

He found the bailiff riding by the farm, 

And, talking from the point, he drew him in. 

And there he mellow'd all his heart \vith ale. 

Until thev closed a bargain, hand in hand. 



" Then, ^vhile I breathed in sight of haven, he, 
Poor fello^v, could he help it.^ recommenced. 
And ran thro' all the coltish chronicle, 



560 THE BROOK. 



Wild Will. Black Bess, Tantivy, Tallyho, 
Reform, White Rose, Bellerophon, the Jilt, 
Arbaces and Phenomenon, and the rest. 
Till, not to die a listener, I arose. 
And with me Philip, talking still; and so 
He turn'd our foreheads from the falling sun, 
And following our own shadows thrice as long 
As when they follow'd us from Philip's door. 
Arrived, and found the sun of sweet content 
Re-risen in Katie's eyes, and all things well. 



I STEAL by lawns and grassy plots, 

I slide by hazel covers; 
I move the sweet forget-me-nots, 

That grow for happy lovers. 

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance. 
Among my skimming swallows: 
make the netted sunbeam dance 
Against mv sandy shallows. 

I murmur under inoon and stars 
In brambly wildernesses; 

I linger by iny shingly bars; 
I loiter round mv cresses: 



And out again I curve and flow 
To join the brimming liver, 

For men may come and men may go. 
But I go on forever. 



Yes, men may come and go; and these are gone, 

All gone. My dearest brother, Edmund, sleeps, 

Not by the well-known stream and rustic spire. 

But unfamiliar Arno, and the dome 

Of Brunelleschi; sleeps in peace: and he. 

Poor Philip, of all his lavish waste of words 

Remains the lean P. W., on his tomb: 

I scraped the lichen from it: Katie walks 

By the long vv^ash of Australasian seas 

Far off, and holds her head to other stars. 

And breathes in converse seasons. All are gone.'' 

So Lawrence Alymer, seated on a stile 
In the long hedge, and rolling in his mind 
Old waifs of rhyme, and bowing o'er the brook 




■Not by the -well-known stream and rustic spire, 
But unfamiliar Arno, and the dome 
Of Brunelleschi." 



THE BROOK. 



561 



A tonsured head in middle age forlorn, 

Mused, and was mute. On a sudden a low breath 

Of tender air made tremble in the hedge 

The fragile bindweed-bells and briony rings; 

And he look'd up. There stood a maiden near. 

Waiting to pass. In much amaze he stared 

On eyes a bashful azure, and on hair 

In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell 

Divides threefold to show the fruit within : 

Then, wondering, ask'd her, " Are you from the farm? 

" Yes," answer'd she. " Pray stay a Httle: pardon me; 

What do they call you?'' "Katie." " That were strange. 

What surname? " " Willows." " No! " " That is my name.' 

" Indeed!" and here he look'd so self-perplext. 

That Katie laugh'd, and laughing blush'd, till he 

Laugh'd also, but as one before he wakes. 

Who feels a glimmering strangeness in his dream. 

Then looking at her: " Too happy, fresh and fair, 

Too fresh and fair in our sad world's best bloom, 

To be the ghost of one who bore your name 

About these meadows, twenty years ago." 

" Have you not heard? " said Katie, " we came back. 
We bought the farm we tenanted before. 
Am I so like her? so they said on board. 
Sir, if you knew her in her English days, 
My mother, as it seems you did, the days 
That most she loves to talk of, come with me. 
My brother James is in the harvest- field: 
But she — you will be welcome — O, come in! " 




562 



THE DAISY 



THE DAISr, 



WRITTEN AT EDINBURGH. 




;,<'!3L0VE, \vhat hours ^vere thine and mine, 
1%'^ In lands of pahai and southern pine; 
^1 In lands of palm, of orange-blossom, 

Wa Of olive, aloe, and inaize and vine. 

TO 



In ruin, by the mountain road; 

How like a gem, beneath, the city 
Of little Monaco, basking, glow'd. 

How richly down the rocky dell 
The torrent vineyard streaming fell 

To ineet the sun and sunnv waters, 
That onlv heaved ^vith a summer swell. 



What slender campanili grew 

By bays, the peacock's neck in hue; 

Where, here and there, on sandy beaches 
A milky-beli'd amarjdlis blew. 

How young Columbus seem'd to rove, 
Yet present in his natal grove. 

Now watching high on mountain cornice. 
And steering, now, from a purple cove, 

Now pacing mute by ocean's rim; 
Till, in a narrow street and dim, 

I stay'd the wheels at Cogoletto, 
And drank, and loyally drank to him. 



Nor knew we Avell ^vhat pleased us most. 
Not the dipt palm of which they boast; 

But distant color, happy hamlet, 
A moulder'd citadel on the coast. 




M' 







"A moulder'd citadel on the coast, 
Or tower, or high hill-convent" 



THE DAisr. 563 



Or tower, or high hill-convent, seen 
A light amid its olives green; 

Or olive-hoary cape in ocean; 
Or rosy blossom in hot ravine, 

Where oleanders flush'd the bed 
•Of silent torrents, gravel-spread; 

And, crossing, oft ^ve saw the glisten 
Of ice, far up on a mountain head. 

We lov'd that hall, tho' white and cold, 
Tliose niched shapes of noble mould, 
A princely people's awful princes, 
Tiie grave, severe Genovese of old. 

At Florence too what golden hours. 
In those long galleries, "were ours; 

What drives al)out the fresh Cascine, 
Or walks in Boboli's ducal bowers. 

In bright vignettes, and each complete. 
Of tower or duomo, sunnv-sweet. 

Or palace, how the city glitter'd. 
Thro' cypress avenues, at our feet. 

But when \ve crost the Lombard plain 
Remember what a plague of rain; 

Of rain at Reggio, rain at Parma; 
At Lodi, rain, Piacenza, rain. 

And stern and sad (so rare the smiles 
Of sunlight) look'd the Lombard piles; 

Porch-pillars on the lion resting, 
And sombre, old, colonnaded aisles. 

Milan, O the chanting quires. 
The giant windows' blazon'd fires, 

The height, the space, the gloom, the glory! 
A mount of marble, a hundred spires! 

1 climb'd the roofs at break of day; 
Sun-smitten Alps before me lay. 



564 



THE DAJSr. 



I stood among the silent statues, 
And statued pinnacles, mute as they. 







::^Psif=^ 



How falntly-flush'd, how phantom-fair, 
Was Monte Rosa, hanging there 

A thousand shadowy-pencil' d valleys 
And snowy dells in a golden air. 

Remember how we came at last 
To Como; shower and storm and blast 
Had blown the lake beyond his limit, 
And all was flooded ; and how we past 

From Como, when the light was gray, 
And in m}^ head, for half the day. 

The rich Virgilian rustic measure 
Of Lari Maxume, all the way. 

Like ballad-burthen music, kept. 
As on the Lariano crept 

To that fair port below the castle 
Of Queen Theodolind, where we slept; 



Or hardly slept, but watch'd awake 
A cypress in the moonlight shake, 

The moonlight touching o'er a terrace 
One tall Agave above the lake. 



THE DAISY. 



5G5 



What more ? we took our last adieu, 
And up the snowy Splugen drew, 

But ere we reach'd the hio^hest summit 
I pluck'd a daisy, I gave it you. 

It told of England then to me, 
And now it tells of Italy. 

O love, we two shall go no longer 
To lands of summer across the sea; 

So dear a life your arms enfold 
Whose crying is a cry for gold: 

Yet here to-night in this dark city, 
When ill and weary, alone and cold, 

I found, tho' crush'd to hard and dry. 
This nurseling of another sky 

Still in the little book you lent me, 
And where you tenderly laid it by: 

And I forgot the clouded Forth, 

The gloom that saddens Heaven and Earth. 

The bitter East, the misty summer 
And gray metropolis of the North. 

Perchance, to lull the throbs of pain, 
Perchance, to charm a vacant brain. 

Perchance, to dream you still beside me, 
IvJy fincy fled to the South again. 






566 



TO THE RE V. E. D. MA URICE. 



TO THE RE V. E. D. MA UEICE. 




OME, when no graver cares employ, 
God-father, come and see your boy: 

Your presence will be sun In winter, 
Making the little one leap for joy 

For, being of that honest few, 
Who give the Fiend himself his due. 
Should eighty thousand college councils 
Thunder " Anathema," friend, at you; 

Should all our churchmen foam in spite 
At you, so careful of the right. 

Yet one lay-hearth would give you welcome 
(Take it and come) to the Isle of Wight; 

Where, far from noise and smoke of town 
I watch the twilight falling brown 

All round a careless order' d garden 
Close to the ridsce of a noble down. 



You'll have no scandal while you dine. 
But honest talk and wholesome wine. 

And only hear the magpie gossip 
Garrulous under a roof of pine: 

For groves of pine on either hand, 
To break the blast of winter, stand : 

And further on, the hoary Channel 
Tumbles a breaker on chalk and sand; 



Where, if below the milky steep 
Some ship of battle slowly creep, 

And on thro' zones of light and shadow 
Glimmer away to the lonely deep, 



TO THE REV. F. D. MAURICE. 



567 



We might discuss the Northern sin 
Which made a selfish war begin; 

Dispute the claims, arrange the chances; 
Emperor, Ottoman, which shall win: 

Or whether war's avenging rod 
Shall lash all Europe into blood; 

Till you should turn to dearer matters. 
Dear to the man that is dear to God ; 

How best to help the slender store, 
How mend the dwellings, of the poor; 

How gain in life, as life advances. 
Valor and charit}-, more and more. 

Come, Maurice, conie: the lawn as yet 
Is hoar with rime, or spong3'-wet; 

But then the wreath of March has blossom 'd. 
Crocus, anemone, violet. 

Or later, pay one visit here, 

For those are few we hold as dear; 

Nor pay but one, but come for many. 
Many and many a happy year. 

January, 1854. 




^■^'-^ -^'t:^' 



^^^s:^!''^^^^'^'^ 



ms 



THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 



THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 




A.LF a league, half a league, 
Haifa league onward, 
All in the valley of Death 
Rode the six hundred. 
" Forward, the Light Brigade! 
Charo^e for the g-uns!" he said: 
Into the valley of Death 
Rode the six hundred. 




'Forward, the Lio^ht Brigade! 
Was there a man dismay'd? 
Not tho' the soldier knew 

Some one had blunder'd: 
Theirs not to make reply, 
Theirs not to reason why. 
Theirs but to do and die: 
Into the valley of Death 

Rode the six hundred. 



I " 



Cannon to right of them 
Cannon to left of them. 
Cannon in front of them 

Volley'd and thunder'd; 
Storm'd at with shot and shell. 
Boldly they rode and well. 
Into the jaws of Death, 
Into the mouth of Hell 

Rode the six hundred. 



Flash'd all their sabres bare, 
Flash'd as they turn'd in air. 
Sabring the gunners there, 
Charging an army, while 
All the world wonder'd : 




THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 



THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 



569 



Piung'd in the battery smoke, 
Right thro' the hne they broke; 
Cossack and Russian 
Reel'd from the sabre stroke 

Shatter'd and sunder'd. 
Then they rode back, but not. 
Not the six hundred. 

Cannon to right of them. 
Cannon to left of them, 
Cannon behind them 

Volle3^'d and tliunder'd; 




Storm'd at with shot and shell, 
While horse and hero fell, 
They that had fought so well 
Came thro' the jaws of Death, 
Back from the mouth of Hell, 
All that was left of them, 
Left of six hundred. 



570 WILL. 



When can their glory fade? 
O the wild charge they made! 

All the world wonder'd. 
Honor the charge they made! 
Honor the Light Brigade, 

Noble six hundred 1 



:?^$)^^^^ 




WILL, 



WELL for him whose will is strong! 
[& suffers, but he will not suffer long ; 
[e suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong ; 
4|^*For him nor moves the loud world's random mock. 
Nor all Calamity's hugest waves confound, 
Who seems a jDromontory of rock. 
That, com.pass'd round with turbulent sound. 
In middle ocean m.eets the surging shock. 
Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crown'd. 

But ill for him who, bettering not with time, 

Corrupts the strength of heaven-descended Will, 

And ever weaker growls thro' acted crime. 

Or seeming-genial venial fault. 

Recurring and suggesting still! 

He seems as one whose footsteps halt, 

Toiling in immeasurable sand. 

And o'er a weary, sultry land. 

Far beneath a blazing vault, 

Sovyn in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill, • 

The city sparkles like a grain of salt. 




THE GRA NDMO l^HER. 



571 



THE GRANDMOTHER, 



ND Willy, my eldest-born, is gone, you say, little Annie? 
^Ruddy, and white, and strong on his legs, he looks like a 

V And Willy's wife has written? she never was over-wise, 
-Hs^ Never the wife for Willy: he wouldn't take my advice, 

% 

P'5(g> For, Annie, you see, her father was not tlie man to save. 

Hadn't a head to manage, and drank himself into his grave. 
^ Pretty enough, very pretty I but I was against it for one. 

Eh! — but he wouldn't hear me — and Willy, you say, is gone. 

Willv, my beauty, my eldest-born, the flowei- of the flock, 
Never a man could fling him; for Willy stood like a rock. 
" Here's a leg for a baby of a week! " says doctor: and he would 

be bound 
There was not his like that year in twenty parishes round. 



Strpng of his hands, and strong on his legs, but still of his tongue! 
I ought to have gone before him.' I wonder he went so young. 
I cannot cry for him, Annie: I have not long to stay; 
Perhaps I shall see him the sooner, for he lived far away. 

Why do you look at me, Annie? you think I am hard and cold; 
But all my children have gone before me, I am so old: 
I cannot weep for Willy, nor can I weep for the rest; 
Only at your age, Annie, I could have wept with the best. 

For I remember a quarrel I had with your father, my clear. 
All for a slanderous story, that cost me many a tear, 
I mean your grandfather, Annie : it cost me a world of woe, 
Seventy years ago, my darling, seventy years ago. 



For Jenn}', my cousin, had come to the place, and I knew right well 
That Jenny had tript in her time: I knew, but I would not tell. 
And she to be coming and slandering me, the base little liar! 
But the tongue is a fire, as you know, my dear, the tongue is a fire. 



572 THE GRANDMOTHER. 



And the parson made it his text that week, and he said likewise, 
That a He which is half a trutli is ever the blackest of lies, 
That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright. 
But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight. 

And Willy had not been down to the farm for a w eek and a day ; 
And all things look'd half-dead, tho' it was the middle of May 
Jenny, to slander me, who knew what Jenny had been! 
But soiling another, Annie, will never make one's self clean. 

And I cried myself well-nigh blind, and all of an evening late 

I climb'd to the top of the garth, and stood by the road at the gate. 

The moon like a rick on fire was rising over the dale. 

And whit, whit, whit, in the bush beside me chirrupt the nightingale. 

All of a sudden he stopt: there past by the gate of the farm, 
Wilh^, — he didn't see me, — and Jenny hung on his arm. 
Out into the road I started, and spoke I scarce knew how; 
Ah, there's no fool like the old one — it makes me angi-y now. 

Willy stood up like a man, and look'd the thing that he meant; 
Jennv, the viper, made me a mocking courtesy and went. 
And I said, " Let us part: in a hundred years it'll all be the same, 
You cannot love me at all, if you love not my good name." 

And he turn'd, and I saw his eyes all wet, in the sweet moonshine: 
*' Sw^eetheart, I love you so well that your good name is mine. 
And what do I care for Jane, let her speak of you well or ill; 
But marry me out of hand: we two shall be happy still." 

" Marry you, Willy! " said I, "but I needs must speak my mind, 
And I fear you'll listen to tales, be jealous and hard and unkind." 
But he turn'd and claspt me in his arms, and answer'd, " No, love, no;" 
Seventy 3^ears ago, my darling, seventy years ago. 

So Willy and I were wedded : I wore a lilac gown ; 
And the ringers rang w^ith a will, and he gave the ringers a crown. 
But the first that ever I bare was dead before he was born. 
Shadow and shine is life, little Annie, flower and thorn. 

That was the first time, too, that ever I thought of death. 
There lay the sw^eet little body that never liad draw^n a breatho 



THE GRANDMOTHER, 573 



I had not wept, little Annie, not since I had been a wife; 

But I wept like a child that da}^, for the babe had fought for his life. 

His dear little face was troubled, as if with anger or pain: 

I look'd at the still little body — his trouble had all been in vain. 

For Willy I cannot weep, I shall see him another morn: 

But I wept like a child for the child that was dead before he was born. 

But he cheer'd me, my good man, for he seldom said me na}^: 
Kind, like a man, was he; like a man, too, would have his way: 
Never jealous — not he: we had many a happy year; 
And he died, and I could not weep — my own time seem'd so near. 

But I wish'd it had been God's will that I, too, then could have died 
I began to be tired a little, and fain had slept at his side. 
And that was ten years back, or more, if I don't forget: 
But as to the children, Annie, they're all about me yet. 

Pattering over the boards, my Annie, who left me at two, 
Patter she goes, my own little Annie, an Annie like you: 
Pattering over the boards, she comes and goes at her will, 
While Harry is in the five-acre and Charlie ploughing the hill. 

And Harry and Charlie, I hear them too — they sing to their team : 
Often they come to the door in a pleasant kind of a dream. 
They come and sit by my chair, they hover about my bed — 
I am not always certain if they be alive or dead. 

And yet I know for a truth, there's none of them left alive; 
For Harry went at sixty, your father at sixty-five: 
And Willy, my eldest-born, at nigh threescore and ten; 
I knew them all as babies, and now they're elderly men. 

For mine is a time of peace, it is not often I grieve: 
I am oftener sitting at home in my father's farm at eve: 
And the neighbors come and laugh and gossip, and so do I ; 
I find myself often laughing at things that have long gone by. 

To be sure the preacher says, our sins should make us sad : 
But mine is a time of peace, and there is Grace to be had; 
And God, not man, is the Judge of us all when Ufe shall cease; 
And in this Book, httle Annie, the message is one of Peace. 



574 



THE LETTERS. 



And age is a time of peace, so it be free from pain, 
And happy has been my Hfe; but I would not Hve it again. 
I seem to be tired a Httle, that's all, and long for rest: 
Only at your age, Annie, I could have wept with the best. 

So Willie has gone, my beaut}^, my eldest-born, my flower; 
But how can I weep for Willy, he has but gone for an hour, — 
Gone for a minute, my son, from this room into the next; 
I too, shall go in a minute. What time have I to be vext? 

And Willy's wife has written, she never was over-wise. 
Get me my glasses, Annie : thank God that I keep my e3^es. 
There is but a trifle left you, when I shall have passed away. 
But stay with the old woman now: you cannot have long to stav 



S<^^g-5^=^ 



THE LETTERS, 




TILL on the tower stood the vane, 
A black yew gloom'd the stagnant air 

I peer'd athwart the chancel pane 
And saw the altar cold and bare. 

A clog of lead was round my feet, 
^'^ A band of pain across my brow; 

Cold altar. Heaven and earth shall meet 
Before you hear my marriage vow," 



I turn'd and humm'd a bitter song 

That mock'd the v^holesome human heart, 
And then \ve met in wrath and wrong, 

We met, but only meant to part. 
Full cold my greeting was and dry; 

She faintly smiled, she hardly moved; 
I saw with half-unconscious eye 

She wore the colors I approved. 



THE LETTERS. 



575 




She took the httle ivory chest, 

With half a sigh she turn'd the kev, 
Then raised her head with hps comprest, 

And gave my letters back to me. 
And gave the trinkets and the rings, 

Mv gifts, when gifts of mine could please; 
As looks a father on the things 

Of his dead son, I look'd on these. 



She told ine all her friends had said; 

I raged against the public liar; 
She talk'd as if her love were dead, 

But in my words were seeds of fire. 



576 



THE LETTERS. 



"No more of love; your sex is known: 
I never will be tv^ice deceived. 

Henceforth I trust the man alone, 
The woman cannot be believed. 

" Thro' slander, meanest spawn of Hell 

(And women's slander is the worst), 
And you, whom once I loved so well. 

Thro' you, my life will be accurst.*' 
I spoke with heart, and heat, and force, 

I shook her breast with vague alarms — 
Like torrents from a mountain source 

We rush'd into each other's arms. 

We parted: sweetly gleam'd the stars. 

And sweet the vapor-braided blue. 
Low breezes fann'd the belfry bars. 

As homeward b}- the church I drew. 
The very graves appeared to smile, 

So fresh they rose in shadowed swells; 
" Dark porch," I said, " and silent aisle, 

There comes a sound of marriage bells.' 







J^A^^Ar^A^A ^ A ^ 4:, ^ A_r^ ^ 




^^^^^^^^^^ 



^^Jf 



ENOCH ARDEN. 



579 




ENOCH ARDEN. 



^ONG lines of cliff breaking have left a chasm ; 
And in the chasm are foam and yellow sands; 
Beyond, red roofs about a narrow wharf 
In cluster; then a moulder'd church; and higher 
A long street climbs to one tall-tower'd mill; 
And high in heaven behind it a gray down 
With Danish barrows; and a hazelwood, 
By autumn nutters haunted, flourishes 
Green in a cuplike hollow of the down. 



Here on this beach a hundred years ago, 
Three children of three houses, Annie Lee, 
The prettiest little damsel in the port, 
And Philip Ray, the miller's only son, 
And Enoch Arden, a rough sailor's lad 
Made orphan by a winter shipwreck, play'd 
Among the waste and lumber of the shore, 
Hard coils of cordage, swarthy fishing-nets, 
Anchors of rusty fluke, and boats up-drawn; 
And built their castles of dissolving sand 
To watch them overflow'd, or following up 
And flying the white breaker, daily left 
The little footprint daily wash'd away. 



A narrow cave ran in beneath the cliff: 
In this the children play'd at keeping house. 
Enoch was host one day, Philip the next. 
While Annie still was mistress; but at times 
Enoch would hold possession for a week: 
" This is my house and this my little wife." 
"Mine too," said Philip, "turn and turn about:" 
When, if they quarrel'd, Enoch stronger-made 
Was master: then would Philip, his blue eyes 
All flooded with the helpless wrath of tears, 
Shriek out, " I hate you, Enoch," and at this 
The little wife would weep for company. 
And pray them not to quarrel for her sake. 
And say she would be little wife to both. 



580 ENOCH ARDEN. 



But when the dawn of rosy childhood past. 
And the new warmth of life's ascending sun 
Was felt by either, either fixt his heart 
On that one girl; and Enoch spoke his love, 
But Philip loved in silence; and the girl 
Seem'd kinder unto Philip than to him; 
But she loved Enoch; tho' she knew it not, 
And would if ask'd, deny it. Enoch set 
A purpose evermoie before his eyes, 
To hoard all savings to the uttermost, 
To purchase his own boat, and make a home 
For Annie : and so prosper'd that at last 
A luckier or a bolder fisherman, 
A carefuler in peril, did not breathe 
For leagues along that breaker-beaten coast 
Than Enoch. Likewise had he served a year 
On board a merchantman, and made himself 
Full sailor; and he thrice had pluck'd a life 
From the dread sweep of the down-streaming seas; 
And all men look'd upon him favorably: 
And ere he touch'd his one-and-twentieth jSIay, 
He purchased his own boat, and made a home 
For Annie., neat and nest-like, half-way up 
The narrow street that clamber'd toward the mill. 

Then, on a golden autumn eventide, 
The younger people making holiday. 
With bag and sack and basket, great and small, 
W^ent nutting to the hazels, Philip stay'd 
(His father lying sick and needing him) 
An hour behind; but as he climVd the hill, 
Just where the prone edge of the w^ood began 
To feather toward the hollow, saw the pair, 
Enoch and x\nnie, sitting hand in hand. 
His large gray eyes and weather-beaten f;ice 
All-kindled by a still and sacred fire. 
That burned as on an altar. Philip look'd. 
And in their eyes and faces read his doom : 
Then, as their faces dre\v together, groaned 
And slipt aside, and like a wounded life 
Crept down into the hollows of the wood ; 
There, while the rest were loudly merry-making. 
Had his dark hour unseen, and rose and past 
Bearins: a lifelono- hunger in his heart. 



ENOCH ARDEN. 581 



So these were wed, and merrily rang the bells, 
And merrily ran the years, seven happy years. 
Seven happy years of health and competence. 
And mutual love and honorable toil; 
With children; first a daughter. In him woke. 
With his first babe's first cry, the noble wish 
To save all earnings to the uttermost, 
And give his child a better bringing-up 
Than his had been, or hers; a wish renew'd, 
When two years after came a boy to be 
The rosy idol of her solitudes, 
While Enoch was abroad on wrathful seas. 
Or often journeying landward; for in truth 
Enoch's white horse, and Enoch's ocean-spoil 
In ocean-smelling osier, and his face, 
Rough-redden'd with a thousand winter gales, 
Not only to the market-cross were known, 
But in the leafy lanes behind the down. 
Far as the portal- warding lion-vv^help. 
And peacock-yewtree of the lonely Hall, 
Whose Friday fare was Enoch's ministering. 

Then came a change, as all things human change. 
Ten miles to northward of the narrow port 
Open'd a larger haven : thither used 
Enoch at times to go by land or sea; 
And once when there, and clambering on a mast 
In harbor, by mischance he slipt and fell: 
A limb was broken when they lifted him; 
And while he lay recovering there, his wife 
Bore him another son, a sickly one: 
Another liand crept too across his trade 
Taking her bread and theirs: and on him fell, 
Altho' a grave and staid God-fearing man, 
Yet lying thus inactive, doubt and gloom. 
He seem'd, as in a nightmare of the night, 
To see his children leading evermore 
Low miserable lives of hand-to-mouth. 
And her, he loved, a beggar: then he pray'd 
*' Save them from this, whatever comes to me." 
And while he pray'd, the master of that ship 
Enoch had served in, hearing his mischance. 
Came, for he knew the man and valued him, 
Reporting of his vessel China-bound, 



582 . ENOCH ARDEN. 



And wanting yet a boatswain. Would he go? 
There yet were many weeks before she sail'd, 
Sail'd from this port. Would Enocli have the place? 
And Enoch all at once assented to it, 
Rejoicing at that answer to his prayer. 

So now that shadow of mischance appear'd 
No graver than as when some little cloud 
Cuts off the fiery highwa}^ of the sun, 
And isles a light in the offing: yet the wife — 
When he was gone — the children — what to do? 
Then Enoch lay long-pondering on his plans 
To sell the boat — and yet he loved her well — 
How many a rough sea had he w^eather'd in her! 
He knew her, as a horseman knows his horse — 
And yet to sell her — then with what she brought 
Buy goods and stores — set Annie forth in trade 
With all that seamen needed or their wives — 
So might she keep the house while he was gone. 
Should he not trade himself out yonder? go 
This voyage more than once? yea, twice or thrice — 
As oft as needed — last, returning rich, 
Become the master of a larger craft. 
With fuller profits lead an easier life, 
Have all his pretty young ones educated, 
And pass his days in peace among his own. 

Thus Enoch in his heart determined all: 
Then moving homeward came on Annie pale, 
Nursing the sickly babe, her latest born. 
Forward she started with a happy cry, 
And laid the feeble infant in his arms; 
Whom Enoch took, and handled all his limbs, 
Appraised his weight, and fondled fatherlike. 
But had no heart to break his purposes 
To Annie, till the morrow, when he spoke. 

Then first since Enoch's golden ring had girt 
Her finger, Annie fought against his will : 
Yet not with brawling opposition she, 
But manifold entreaties, many a tear. 
Many a sad kiss by day by night renew'd 
(Sure that all evil would come out of it) 



ENOCH ARDEN. ^^3 



Besought him, supplicating, if he cared 
For her or his dear children, not to go. 
He not for his own self caring but her, 
Her and her children, let her plead in vain; 
So grieving held his will, and bore it thro'. 

For Enoch parted with his old sea-friend, 
Bought Annie goods and stores, and set his hand 
To fit their little streetward sitting-room 
With shelf and corner for the goods and stores. 
So all day long till Enoch's last at home. 
Shaking their pretty cabin, hammer and axe, 
Auger and saw, while Annie seem'd to hear 
Her own death-scaffold raising, shrill'd and rang, 
Till this was ended, and his careful hand, — 
The space was narrow, — having order'd all 
Almost as neat and close as Nature packs 
Her blossom or her seedling, paused; and he, 
Who needs would work for Annie to the last. 
Ascending tired, heavily slept till morn. 

And Enoch faced this morning of farewell 
Brightly and boldly. All his Annie's fears. 
Save as his Annie's, were a laughter to him. 
Yet Enoch as a brave God-fearing man 
Bow'd himself down, and in that mystery 
Where God-in-man is one with man-in-God, 
Pray'd for a blessing on his wife and babes 
Whatever came to him: and then he said, 
" Annie, this voyage by the grace of God 
Will bring fair weather yet to all of us. 
Keep a clean hearth and a clear fire for me. 
For I'll be back, my girl, before you know it." 
Then lightly rocking baby's cradle, "and he. 
This pretty, puny, weakly little one, — 
Nay — for I love him all the better for it — 
God bless him, he shall sit upon my knees 
And I will tell him tales of foreign parts. 
And make him merry, when I come home again. 
Come Annie, come, cheer up before I go." 

Him running on thus hopefully she heard. 
And almost hoped herself; but when he turn'd 



584 ENOCH ARDEN. 



The current of his talk to graver things 

1)1 sailor fashion roughly sermonizing 

On providence and trust in Heaven, she heard, 

Heard and not heard hirn ; as the village girl, 

Who sets her pitcher underneath the spring. 

Musing on him that used to fill it for her, 

Hears and not hears, and lets it overflow. 

At length she spoke, " O Enoch, you are wise; 
And yet for all your wisdom well know I / 

That I shall look upon your face no more." / 

"Well then," said Enoch, "I shall look on yours. / 

Annie, the ship I sail in passes here J 

(He named the day) get you a seaman's glass, / 

Spy out my face, and laugh at all your fears." 

But when the last of those last moments came, 
*' Annie, my girl, cheer up, be comforted. 
Look to the babes, and till I come again. 
Keep everything shipshape, for I must go. 
And fear no more for me; or if 3'ou fear 
Cast all your cares on God; that anchor holds. 
Is He not yonder in those uttermost 
Parts of the morning? if I flee to these 
Can I go from Him? and the sea is His, 
The sea is His: He made it." 

Enoch rose. 
Cast his strong arms about his drooping wife. 
And kiss'd his wonder-stricken little ones; 
But for the third, the sickly one, who slept 
After a night of feverous wakefulness, 
When Annie would have raised him Enoch said, 
*' Wake him not; let him sleep; how should the child 
Remember this? " and kiss'd him in his cot, 
But Annie from her baby's forehead dipt 
A tiny curl, and gave it: this he kept 
Thro' all his future; but now hastily caught 
His bundle, waved his hand, and went his way. 

She when the day, that Enoch mention'd, came, 
Borrowed a glass, but all in vain: perhaps 



ENOCH ARDEN. 



585 



She could not fix the glass to suit her eye; 
Perhaps her eye was dim, hand tremulous; 
Slie saw him not: and while he stood on deck 
Waving, the moment and the vessel past. 

Ev'n to the last dip of the vanishing sail 
She watched it, and departed weeping for him ; 
Then, tho' she mourn'd his absence as his grave, 
Set her sad will no .less to chime with his. 
But throve not in her trade, not being bred 
To barter, nor compensating the want 
By shrewdness, neither capable of lies. 
Nor asking overmuch and taking less, 
And still foreboding " What would Enoch say?" 
For more than once, in days of difficulty 
And pressure, had she sold her wares for less 
Than what she gave in buying what she sold: 
She faii'd, and sadden'd knowing it; and thus, 
Expectant of that news which never came, 
Gain'd for her own a scanty sustenance. 
And lived a life of silent melancholy. 

Now the third child was sickly born and grew 
Yet sicklier, tho' the mother cared for it 
With all a mother's care: nevertheless. 
Whether her business often called her from it, 
Or thro' the want of what is needed m.ost, 
Or means to pay the voice who best could tell 
What most it needed — howso'er it was. 
After a lingering, — ere she was aware, — • 
Like the caged bird escaping suddenly. 
The little innocent soul flitted away. 

In that same week when Annie buried it, 
Philip's true heart, which hunger'd for her peace 
{Since Enoch left he had not look'd upon her), 
Smote him, as having kept aloof so long. 
" Surely," said Philip, " I may see her now, 
May be some little comfort;" therefore went. 
Past thro' the solitary room in front. 
Paused for a moment at an inner door. 
Then struck it thrice, and, no one opening, 
Enter'd; but Annie, seated with her grief, 



586 



ENOCH ARDEN. 




Fresh from the burial of her little one, 

Cared not to look on any human face, 

But turn'd her own toward the wall and wept. 

Then Philip standing up said falteringly, 

" Annie, I came to ask a favor of you." 

He spoke; the passion in her moan'd reply, 
" Favor from one so sad and so forlorn 
As I am!" half abash'd him; yet unask'J, 
His bashfulness and tenderness at war. 
He sits himself beside her, saying to her: 



" I came to speak to you of what he wish'd, 
Enoch, your husband : I have ever said 
You chose the best among us — a strong man : 
For where he fixt his heart he set his hand 



ENOCH ARDEN. 587 



To do the thing he willed, and bore it thro'. 

And wherefore did he go this weary way, 

And leave you lonely? not to see the world — 

For pleasure? — nay, but for the wherewithal 

To give his babes a better bringing-up 

Than his had been, or yours: that was his wish. 

And if he comes again, vext will he be 

To find the precious morning hours were lost. 

And it would vex him even in his grave. 

If he could know his babes were running wild 

Like colts about the waste. So, Annie, now — 

Have we not known each other all our lives ? 

I do beseech you by the love you bear 

Him and his children not to say me nay — • 

For, if you will, when Enoch comes again 

Why then he shall repay me — if you will, 

Annie — for I am rich and well-to-do. 

Now let me put the boy and girl to school : 

This is the favor I came to ask." 

Then Annie with her brows against the wall 
Answer'd, " I cannot look you in the face, 
I seem so foolish and so broken down; 
When you came in my sorrow broke me down; 
And now I think your kindness breaks me down; 
But Enoch lives; that is borne in on me; 
He will repay you: money can be repaid; 
Not kindness such as yours." 

And Philip ask'd 
« Then you will let me, Annie? " 

Then she turn'd, 
She rose and fixt her swimming eyes upon him. 
And dwelt a moment on his kindly face. 
Then calling down a blessing on his head 
Caught at his hand and wrung it passionately, 
And past into the little garth beyond. 
So lifted up in spirit he moved away. 

Then Philip put the boy and girl to school. 
And bought them needful books, and every way, 
Like one who does his duty by his own, 



ENOCH ARDEN. 



Made himself theirs; and tho' for Annie's sake, 
Fearing the lazy gossip of the port, 
He oft denied his heart his dearest wish, 
And seldom crossed the threshold, yet he sent 
Gifts by the children, garden-herbs and fruit. 
The late and early roses from his wall. 
Or conies from the down, and now and then. 
With some pretext of fineness in the meal 
To save the offence of charitable, flour 
From his tall mill that whistled on the waste. 

But Philip did not fathom Annie's mind: 
Scarce could the woman when he came upon her. 
Out of full heart and boundless gratitude 
Liofht on a broken word to thank him with. 
But Philip was her children's all-in-all; 
From distant corners of the street they ran 
To greet his hearty welcome heartily; 
Lords of his house and of his mill were they; 
Worried his passive ear with pett}^ wrongs 
Or pleasures, hung upon him, play'd with him 
And called him Father Philip. Philip gained 
As Enoch lost; for Enoch seemed to them 
Uncertain as a vision or a dream. 
Faint as a figure seen in early dawn 
Down at the far end of an avenue, 
Going ye know not wliere; and so ten years, 
Since Enoch left his hearth and native land. 
Fled forward, and no news of Enoch came. 

It chanced one evening Annie's children long'd 
To go with others, nutting to the wood. 
And Annie would go with them ; then they begg'd 
For Father Philip (as they call'd him) too: 
Him like the working bee in blossom dust, 
Blanch'd with his mill, they found; and saying to him, 
" Come with us Father Philip" he denied; 
But when the children pluck'd at him to go. 
He laugh'd, and yielded readily to their wish. 
For was not Annie with them? and they went. 

But alter scaling half the weary down. 
Just where the prone edge of the wood began 
To feather toward the hollow, all her force 



ENOCH ARDEN. 



589 



Fail'd her; and sighing, " Let me rest," she said: 
So Phihp rested with her well content: 
While all the younger ones with jubilant cries 
Broke from their elders, and tumultuously 
Down thro' the v/hitening hazels made a plunge 
To the bottom, and dispersed, and bent or broke 
The lithe reluctant boughs to tear away 
Their tawny clusters, crying to each other, 
And calling, here and there, about the wood. 




But Philip sitting at her side forgot 
Her presence, and remember'd one dark hour 
Here in this wood, when like a wounded life 
He crept into the shadow : at last he said. 
Lifting his honest forehead, "Listen, Annie, 
How merry they are down yonder in the wood." 
" Tired, Annie?" for she did not speak a word. 
" Tired?" but her face had fall'n upon her hands; 
At which, as with a kind of anger in him, 
« The ship was lost," he said, " the ship was lost! 
No more of tlTat! Why should you kill yourself 
And make them orphans quite?" and Annie said, 



590 ENOCH ARDEN. 



" I thought not of it : but — I know not why— 
Their voices make me feel so soUtary." 

Then Philip coming somewhat closer spoke. 
*' Annie, there is a thing upon my mind, 
And it has been upon my mind so long, 
That Iho' I know not when it first came there, 
I know that it will out at last. O Annie, 
It is beyond all hope, against all chance, 
That he who left you ten long years ago 
Should still be living; well then — let me speak: 
I grieve to see you poor and wanting help . 
I cannot help you as 1 wish to do 
Unless — they say that women are so quick- — 
Perhaps you know what I would have 3^ou know — 
I wish you for my wife. I fain would prove 
A father to your children: I do think 
They love me as a father: I am sure 
That I love them as if they were mine own; 
And I believe, if you were fast my wife, 
That after all these sad uncertain years, 
We might be still as happy as God grants 
To any of his creatures. Think upon it: 
For 1 am well-to-do — no kin, no care, 
No burthen, save my care for you and yours: 
And we have known each other all our lives. 
And I have loved you longer than you know." 

Then answer'd Annie ; tenderly she spoke : 
" You have been as God's good angel in our house. 
God bless you for it, God reward you for it, 
Philip, with something happier than myself. 
Can one love twice? can you be ever loved 
As Enoch was? what is it that you ask?" 
" I am content," he answer'd, " to be loved 
A little after Enoch." « O," she cried. 
Scared as it were, "dear Philip, wait a while: 
If Enoch comes — but Enoch will not come — 
Yet wait a year, a year is not so long: 
Surely I shall be wiser in a year: 

wait a little!" Philip sadly said, 
'• Annie, as I have waited all my life 

1 well may wait a little." " Nay," she cried, 



ENOCH ARDEN. 591 



I am bound: you have my promise — in a year: 
Will you not bide your year as I bide mine? " 
And Philip answei'd, " I will bide my year." 

Here both were mute, till Philip glancing up 
Beheld the dead flarne of the fallen day 
Pass from the Danish barrow overhead; 
Then fearing night and chill for Annie, rose 
And sent his voice beneath him thro' the wood. 
Up came the children laden with their spoil; 
Then all descended to the port, and there 
At Annie's door he paused and gave his hand, 
Saying gently, " Annie, when I spoke to you, 
That was your hour of weakness. I was wrong, 
I am always bound to you, but you are free." 
Then Annie weeping answer'd " I am bound." 

She spoke; and in one moment as it were, 
While yet she went about her household ways, 
Ev'n as she dwelt upon his latest words. 
That he had loved her longer than she knew, 
That autumn into autumn flashed again. 
And there he stood once more before her face. 
Claiming her promise. " Is it a year? " she ask'd, 
*' Yes, if the nuts," he said, " be ripe again: 
Come out and see." But she — she put him off — 
So much to look to — such a change — a month — 
Give her a month — she knew that she was bound— 
A month — no more. Then Philip with his ejes 
Full of that lifelong hunger, and his voice 
Shaking a little like a drunkard's hand, 
" Take your own time, Annie, take your own time." 
And Annie could have wept for pity of him; 
And yet she held him on delayingly 
With many a scarce-believable excuse, 
Trying his truth and his long sufferance 
Till half-another year had slipt away. 



By this the lazy gossips of the port, 
Abhorrent of a calculation crost, 
Began to chafe as at a personal wrong. 
Some thought that Philip did but trifle with her; 
Some that she but held off to draw him on : 



L 



592 ENOCH ARDEN. 



And others laughed at her and Philip too, 

As simple folk that knew not their own minds; 

And one, in whom all evil fancies clung 

Like serpent eggs together, laughingly 

Would hint at worse in either. Her own son 

Was silent, tho' he often look'd his wish; 

But evermore the daughter prest upon her 

To w^ed the man so dear to all of them 

And lift the household out of poverty; 

And Philip's rosy face contracting grew 

Careworn and wan; and all these things fell on her 

Sharp as reproach. 

At last one night it chanced 
That Annie could not sleep, but earnestly 
Pray'd for a sign " my Enoch is he gone? " 
Then compass'd round b}'^ the blind wall of night 
Brook'd not the expectant terror of her heart, 
Started from bed, and str uck herself a light, 
Tlien desperately seized the holy Book, 
Suddenly set it wide to find a sign, 
Suddenly put her finger on the text, 
" Under a palmtree." That was nothing to her: 
No meaning there: she closed the book and slept: 
When lo! her Enoch sitting on a height 
Under a palmtree, over him the Sun: 
" He is gone," she thought, " he is happy, he is singing 
Hosanna in the highest : yonder shines 
The Sun of Righteousness, and these be palms 
Whereof the happy people strewing cried 
* Hosanna in the highest! ' " Here she woke. 
Resolved, sent for him and said wildly to him 
" There is no reason why we should not wed." 
" Then for God's sake," he answ^er'd, "both our sakes. 
So you will wed me, let it be at once." 

So these were wed and merrily rang the bells, 
Merrily rang the bells and they were wed. 
But never merrily beat Annie's heart. 
A footstep seemed to fall beside her path, 
She knew not whence; a whisper on her ear, 
She knew not what: nor loved she to be left 
Alone at home, nor ventured out alone. 



ENOCH ARDEN. 



593 



What ailed her then, that ere she entered, often 
Her hand dwelt lingeringly on the latch, 
Fearing to enter: Philip thought he knew: 
Such doubts and fears were common to her state, 
Being with child : but when her child was born, 
Then her new child was as herself renew'd, 
Then the new mother came about her heart. 
Then her good Philip was her all-in-all, 
And that mysterious instinct wholly died. 




And where was Enoch? Prosperously sail'd 
The ship " Good Fortune," tho' at setting forth 
The Biscay, roughly riding eastward, shook 
And almost overwhelm'd her, yet unvext 
She slipt across the summer of the world. 
Then after a long tumble about the Cape 
And frequent interchange of foul and fair. 
She passing thro' the summer world again. 
The breath of Heaven came continually 
And sent her sweetly by the golden isles, 
Till silent in her oriental haven. 



There Enoch traded for himself, and bought 
Quaint monsters for the market of those times, 
A gilded dragon, also, for the babes. 



594 ENOCH ARDEN. 



Less lucky her home-voyage: at first indeed 
Thro' many a fan- sea-circle, day by day. 
Scarce-rocking, her full-busted figure-head 
Stared o'er the ripple feathering from her bowss 
Then followed calms, and then winds variable, 
Then baffling, a long course of them; and last 
Storm, such as drove her under moonless heavens 
Till hard upon the cry of " breakers " came 
The crash of ruin, and the loss of all 
But Enoch and two others. Half the night, 
Buoy'd upon floating tackle and broken spars, 
These drifted, stranding on an isle at morn 
Rich, but the loneliest in a lonely sea. 

No want was there of human sustenance. 
Soft fruitage, mighty nuts, and nourishing roots; 
Nor save for pity was it hard to take 
The helpless life so wild that it was tame. 
There in a seaward-gazing mountain-gorge 
Tliey built, and thatched with leaves of palm, a hut. 
Half hut half native cavern. So the three, 
Set in this Eden of all plenteousness. 
Dwelt with eternal summer, ill-contetit. 

For one, the youngest, hardly more than boy, 
Hurt in that night of sudden ruin and wreck, 
Lay lingering out a five-years' death-in-life. 
They could not leave him. After he was gone, 
The two remaining found a fallen stem ; 
And Enoch's comrade, careless of himself. 
Fire-hollowing this in Indian fashion, feil 
Sun-stricken, and that other lived alone. 
In those two deaths he read God's warning " wait." 

The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns 
And winding glades high up like ways to Heaven, 
The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes. 
The lightning flash of insect and of bird. 
The lustre of the long convolvuluses 
That coil'd around the stately stems, and ran 
Ev'n to the limit of the land, the glows 
And glories of the broad belt of the w^orld, 
All these he saw; but w^hat he fain had seen 



ENOCH ARDEN. 595 



He could not see, the kindly human face, 

Nor ever heard a kindly voice, but heard 

The myriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl, 

The league-long roller thundering on the reef. 

The moving whisper of huge trees that branch'd 

And blossomed in the zenith, or the sweep 

Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave, 

As down the shore he ranged, or all dav lonof 

Sat often in the seaward-gazing gorge, 

A shipwreck'd sailor, waiting for a sail : 

No sail from day to day, but every day 

The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts 

Among the palms and ferns and precipices; 

The blaze upon the waters to the east; 

The blaze upon his island overhead; 

The blaze upon the waters to the west; 

Then the great stars that globed themselves in Heaven, 

The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again 

The scarlet shafts of sunrise — but no sail. 

There often as he watchM or seemM to watch, 
So still, the golden lizard on him paused, 
A phantom made of many phantoms moved 
Before him haunting him, or he himself 
Moved haunting people, things and places, known 
Far in a darker isle beyond the line; 
The babes, their babble, Annie, the small house. 
The climbing street, the mill, the leafy lanes. 
The peacock-yewtree and the lonely Hall, 
The horse he drove, the boat he sold, the chill 
November dawns and dewy-glooming downs, 
The gentle shower, the smell of dying leaves. 
And the low moan of leaden-color'd seas. 

Once likewise, in the ringing of his ears, 
Tho' faintly, merrily — far and far away — 
He heard the pealing of his parish bells; 
Then, tho' he knew not wherefore, started up 
Shuddering, and when the beauteous hateful isle 
Return'd upon him, had not his poor heart 
Spoken with That, which being everywhere 
Lets none, who speaks with Him, seem all alone, 
Surely the man had died of solitude. 



596 



ENOCH ARDEN. 




Thus over Enoch's early-silvering head 
The sunny and rainy seasons came and went 
Year after year. His hopes to see his own, 
And pace the sacred old familiar fields, 
Not yet had perish'd, when his lonely doom 
Came suddenly to an end. Another ship 
(She wanted water) blown by baffling winds, 
Like the Good Fortune, from her destined course, 
Stay'd by this isle, not knowing where she lay: 
For since the mate had seen at early dawn 
Across a break on the mist-wreathen isle 
The silent water slipping from the hills, 
They sent a crew that landing burst away 
In search of stream or fount, and fill'd the shores 
With clamor. Downward from his mountain gorge 



ENOCH ARDEN. 597 



Stept the long-hah'd long-bearded solitary, 

Brown, looking hardly human, strangely clad, 

Muttering and mumbling, idiotlike it seem'd. 

With inarticulate rage, and making signs 

They knew not what: and yet he led the way 

To where the rivulets of sw^eet water ran ; 

And ever as he mingled w4th the crew^, 

And heard them talking, his long-bounden tongue 

Was loosened, till he made them understand: 

Whom, when their casks were fiU'd they took aboard: 

And there the tale he utter'd brokenly, 

Scarce-credited at first but more and more. 

Amazed and melted all who listen'd to it : 

And clothes they gave him and free passage home; 

But oft he worked among the rest and shook 

His isolation from him. None of these 

Came from his country, or could answer him. 

If questioned, aught of what he cared to know. 

And dull the voyage v^as with long delays, 

The vessel scarce sea- worthy; but evermore 

His fancy fled before the lazy wnnd 

Returning, till beneath a clouded moon 

He like a lover down thro' all his blood 

Drew in the dewy meadowy mornmg-breath 

Of England, blown across her ghostly wall: 

And that same morning oflicers and men 

Levied a kindly tax upon themselves. 

Pitying the lonely man, and gave him it: 

Then moving up the coast they landed him, 

Ev'n in that harbor whence he sail'd before. 

There Enoch spoke no word to any one, 
But homeward — home — what home? had he a home? 
His home, he walked. Bright was that afternoon, 
Sunny but chill; till drawn thro' either chasm. 
Where either haven open'd on the deeps, 
Roll'd a sea-haze and whelm'd the world in gray; 
Cut off the length of highway on before, 
And left but narrow breadth to left and right 
Of withered holt or tilth or pasturage. 
On the nigh-naked tree the Robin piped 
Disconsolate, and thro' the dripping haze 
The dead weight of the dead leaf bore it down: 
Thicker the drizzle grew, deeper the gloom; 



598 ENOCH ARDEX. 



Last, as it seem'd, a great mist-blotted light 
Flared on him, and he came upon the place. 

Then down the lono: street having slowlv stolen. 
His heart foreshadowing all calamity, 
His eyes upon the stones, he reached the home 
Where Annie lived and loved him, and his babes 
In those far-off seven happy years were born; 
But finding- neither lio-ht nor murmur there 
(A bill of sale gleamed thro' the drizzle) crept 
Still downward thinking "dead or dead to me! " 

Down to the pool and narrow wharf he went, 
Seeking a tavern which of old he knew, 
A front of timber-crost antiquity, 
So propt, Avorm-eaten, ruinously old, 
He thought it must have gone; but he was gone 
Who kept it : and his widow, Miriam Lane, 
With daily-dwindling profits held the house; 
A haunt of brawling seamen once, but now 
Stiller, with yet a bed for wandering men. 
There Enoch rested silent manv davs. 



But Miriam Lane was good and garrulous, 
Nor let him be, but often breaking in. 
Told him, with other annals of the port, 
Not knowing — Enoch was so brown, so bow'd. 
So broken — all the story of his house. 
His baby's death, her growing poverty. 
How Philip put her little ones to school. 
And kept them in it, his long Wooing her. 
Her slow consent, and marriage, and the birth 
Of Philip's child: and o'er his countenance 
Xo shadow past, nor motion ; any one. 
Regarding, well had deem'd he felt the tale 
Less than the teller: only when she closed, 
'• Enoch, poor man, was cast away and lost " 
He shaking his gray head pathetically, 
Repeated muttering " Cast away and lost." 
Again in deeper inward whispers "Lost!" 

But Enoch yearn'd to see her face again; 
" If I mio^ht look on her sweet face ag^ain 
And know that she is happy." So tliQ thought 



ENOCH ARDEN. 599 



Haunted and harass'd him, and drove him forth 
At evening when the dull November day 
Was growing duller twilight, to the hill. 
There he sat down gazing on all below: 
There did a thousand memories roil upon him, 
Unspeakable for sadness. By and by 
The ruddy square of comfortable light, 
Far-blazing from the rear of Philip's house, 
Allured him, as the beacon-blaze allures 
The bird of passage, till he madly strikes 
Against it, and beats out his weary life. 

For Philip's dwelling fronted on the street, 
The latest house to landward; but behind. 
With one small gate that open'd on the waste, 
Flourish'd a little garden square and wall'd: 
And in it throve an ancient evergreen, 
A yewtree, and all round it ran a walk 
Of shingle, and a walk divided it: 
But Enoch shunn'd the middle walk and stole 
Up by the wall, behind the yew; and thence 
That which he better might have shunn'd, if griefs 
Like his have worse or better, Enoch saw. 

For cups and silver on the burnish'd board 
Sparkled and shone: so genial was the hearth; 
And on the right hand of the hearth he saw- 
Philip, the slighted suitor of old times. 
Stout, rosy, with his babe across his knees; 
And o'er her second father stoopt a girk 
A later but a loftier Annie Lee, 
Fair-hair'd and tall, and from her lifted hand 
Dangled a length of ribbon and a ring 
To tempt the babe, who rear'd his creasy arms, 
Caught at and ever miss'd it, and they laugh'd: 
And on the left hand of the hearth he saw 
The mother glancing often towards her babe, 
But turning now and then to speak with him. 
Her son, who stood before her tall and strong. 
And saying that which pleased him, for he smiled. 

Now when the dead man come to life beheld 
His wife his wife no more, and saw the babe 
Hers, yet not his, upon the father's knee. 



600 ENOCH ARDEN. 



And all the ^varmth, the peace, the happiness, 
And his own children tall and beautiful, 
And him, that other, reigning in his place. 
Lord of his rights and of his children's love, — 
Then he, tho' Miriam Lane had told him all, 
Because things seen are mightier than things heard, 
Stagger'd and shook, holding the branch, and fear'd 
To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry. 
Which in one moment, like the blast of doom. 
Would shatter all the happiness of the hearth. 

He therefore turning softly like a thief. 
Lest the harsh shingle should grate underfoot, 
And feeling all along the garden-wall, 
Lest he should swoon and tumble and be found, 
Crept to the gate, and open'd it, and closed, 
As lightly as a sick-man's chamber-door, 
Behind him, and came out upon the waste. 

And there he would have knelt, but that his knees 
Were feeble, so that falling prone he dug 
His fingers into the wet earth, and pray'd. 

" Too hard to bear! why did they take me thence? 
O God Almighty, blessed Saviour, Thou 
That didst uphold me on my lonely isle, 
Uphold me, Father, in my loneliness 
A little longer! aid me, give me strength, 
Not to tell her, never to let her know. 
Help me not to break in upon her peace. 
My children too! must I not speak to these? 
They know me not, I should betray myself. 
Never: no father's kiss for me, — the girl 
So like her mother, and the boy, my son." 

There speech and thought and nature fail'd a little, 
And he lay tranced' but when he rose and paced 
Back toward his solitary home again, 
All down the narrow street he went 
Beating it in upon his weary brain. 
As tho' it were the burthen of a song, 
" Not to tell her J never to let her know," 



ENOCH ARDEN, 601 



He was not all unhappy. His resolve 
Upbore him, and firm faith, and evermore 
Prayer from a living source \vithin the will. 
And beating up thro' all the bitter world, 
Like fountains of sweet water in the sea. 
Kept him a living soul. " This miller's wife," 
He said to Miriam, " that you told i^ne of. 
Has she nb fear that her first husband lives?" 
" Ay, ay, poor soul," said Miriam, " fear enow! 
If you could tell her you had seen him dead. 
Why, that would be her comfort: " and he thought, 
" After the Lord has call'd me she shall know, 
I wait his time," and Enoch set himself. 
Scorning an alms, to work vs^hereby to live. 
Almost to all things could he turn his hand. 
Cooper he v^as and carpenter, and w^rought 
To make the boatmen fishing- nets, or help'd 
At lading and unlading the tall barks. 
That brought the stinted commerce of those dayss 
Thus earn'd a scanty living for himself: 
Yet since he did but labor for himself. 
Work without hope, there was not life in it 
Whereby the man could live ; and as the year 
Roll'd itself round again to meet the day 
When Enoch had return'd, a languor came 
Upon him, gentle sickness, gradually 
Weakening the man, till he could do no more. 
But kept the house, his chair, and last his bed. 
And Enoch bore his weakness cheerfully. 
For sure no gladlier does the stranded wreck 
See thro' the gray skirts of a lifting squall 
The boat that bears the hope of life approach 
To save the life despair'd of, than he saw 
Death dawning on him, and the close of all. 

For thro' that dawning gleam'd a kindlier hope 
On Enoch thinking, " After I am gone. 
Then may she learn I loved her to the last." 
He call'd aloud for Miriam Lane and said, 
" Woman, I have a secret — only swear. 
Before I tell you — swear upon the book 
Not to reveal it, till you see me dead." 
" Dead," clamor'd the good woman, " hear him talk! 
I warrant, man, that we shall bring you round." 



602 



ENOCH ARDEN. 



" Swear," added Enoch, sternly, " on the book." 
And on the book, half-frighted, Miriam swore. 




Then Enoch, rolling his gray eyes upon her, 
" Did 3'ou know Enoch Arden of this town ? " 
" Know him? " she said, " I knew him far away. 
Ay, ay, I mind him coming down the street; 
Held his head high, and cared for no man, he." 
vSlowly and sadly Enoch answer'd her: 
"His head is low^, and no man cares for him. 
I think I have not three days more to liye; 
I am the man." At which the woman gave 
A half-incredulous, half-hysterical cry. 
" You Arden, you! nay, — sure he was a foot 
.Higher than you be." Enoch said again, 
"My God has bow'd me down to what I am; 
My grief and solitude have broken me; 
Nevertheless, know you that I am he 
Who married — but that name has twice been changed- 
I married her \vho married Philip Ray. 
Sit, listen." Then he told her of his voyage, 



ENOCH ARDEN. 603 



His wreck, liis lonely life, his coining b^ck, 
His gazing in on Annie, his resolve, 
And how he kept it. As the woman heard, 
Fast flowed the current of her easy tears, 
While in her heart she yearn'd incessantly 
To rush abroad all round tlie little haven, 
Proclaiming Enoch Arden and his woes; 
But awed and promise-bounden she forebore, 
Saying only, " See your bairns before you go! 
Eh, let me fetch 'm, Arden," and arose 
Eager to brmg them down, for Enoch hung 
A moment on her words, but then replied: 

" Woman, disturb me not now at the last, 
But let me hold my purpose till I die. 
Sit do^vn again; mark me and understand, 
While I have power to speak. I charge you now, 
When you shall see her, tell her that I died 
Blessing her, praying for her, loving her; 
Save for the bar between us, loving her 
As when she laid her head beside my own. 
And tell my daughter Annie, whom I saw 
So like her mother, that my latest breath 
Was spent in blessing her and praying for her. 
And tell my son that I died blessing him, 
And say to Philip that I blest him too, 
He never meant us anything but good. 
But if my children care to see me dead, 
Who hardly knew me living, let them come, 
I am their father; but she must not come, 
For my dead face would vex her after-life. 
And now there is but one of all my blood, 
Who will embrace me in the world-to-be: 
This hair Is his: she cut it off and gave it, 
And I have borne it with me all these years, 
And thought to bear it with me to my grave: 
But now my mind is changed, for I shall see him. 
My babe in bliss : wherefore when I am gone. 
Take, give her this, for it inay comfort her: 
It will moreover be a token to her, 
That I am he." 



He ceased; and Miriam Lane 
Made such a voluble answer promising all, 



604 



ENOCH ARDEN. 



That once again he roll'd his eyes upon her 
Repeating all he ^vish'd, and once again 
She promised. 

Then the third night after this, 
While Enoch slumber'd inotionless and pale, 
And Miriam watch'd and dozed at inter^^als, 
There came so loud a calling of the sea, 
That all the houses in the haven rang. 
He woke, he rose, he spread his arms abroad 
Crying with a loud voice " A sail! a sail! 
I am saved; " and so fell back and spoke no more. 

So past the strong heroic soul away. 
And when they buried him the little port 
Had seldom seen a costlier funeral. 



^% 




%-■. ||i',,|ii4l| ^ 
^/ I'll m 

•Arm 







.(jofi^ieN^ii pbbm 





ATLMER'S FIELD. 



607 



ATLMER'S FIELD, 




1793- 



UST are our frames: and, gilded dust, our pride 
Lrooks only for a moment whole and sound; 
Like that long- buried body of the king. 

Found lying with his urns and ornaments. 

Which at a touch of light, an air of heaven, 

Slipt into ashes and was found no more. 



Here is a story which in rougher shape 
Came from a grizzled cripple, \vhom I saw 
Sunning himself in a waste field alone — 
Old, and a mine of memories — who had served, 
Long since, a bygone Rector of the place, 
And been himself a part or what he told. 

Sir Aylmer Aylmer, that almighty man. 
The county God — in M^hose capacious hall, 
Hung with a hundred shields, the family tree 
Sprang from the midriff of a prostrate king — 
Whose blazing wyvern weathercock'd the spire. 
Stood from his walls and wing'd his entry-gates 
And swang besides on manj' a windy sign— 
Wlnose eyes from under a pyramidal head 
Saw^ from his windows nothing save his own — 
What lovelier of his own had he tlian her. 
His only child, his Edith, wdiom he loved 
As heiress and not heir regretfully? 
But "he that marries her marries her name" 
This fiat somewhat soothed himself and wife. 
His wife a faded beauty of the Baths, 
Insipid as the Queen upon a card; 
Her all of thought and bearing hardly more 
Than his own shado\v in a sickly sun. 



A land of hops and poppy-mingled corn. 
Little about it stirring save a brook ! 



608 ATLMER'S FIELD, 



A sleepy land where under the same wheel 

The same old rut would deepen 3-ear by year; 

"Where almost all the village had one name; 

Where Aylmer follow'd Aylmer at the Hall 

And Averill Averill at the Rectory 

Thrice over; so that Rectory and Hall, 

Bound in an immemorial intimacy, 

Were open to each other; tho' to dream 

That Love could bind them closer well had made 

The hoar hair of the Baronet bristle up 

With horror, worse than had he heard his priest 

Preach an inverted Scripture, sons of men 

Daughters of God; so sleepy was the land. 




And might not Averill, had he will'd it so, 
Somewhere beneath his own low range of roofs, 
Have also set his many-shielded tree? 
There Vv^as an Aylmer- Averill marriage once. 
When the red rose is redder than itself, 
And York's white rose as red as Lancaster's, 
With wounded peace which each had prick'd to death, 
" Xot proven," Averill said, or laughingly, 
" Some other race of Averills " — prov'n or no. 
What cared he? what, if other or the same? 
He lean'd not on his fathers but himself 
But Leolin, his brother, living oft 
With Averill, and a year or two before 
Call'd to the bar, but ever call'd away 
By one low voice to one dear neighborhood. 
Would often, in his "svalks with Edith, claim 
A distant kinship to the gracious blood 
That shook the heart of Edith hearinor him. 



ATLMER'S FIELD. 609 



Sanguine he 'was ; a but less vivid hue 
Than of that islet in the chestnut-bloom 
Flamed in his cheek; and eager eyes, that still 
Took joyful note of all things joyful, beam'd. 
Beneath a manelike mass of rolling gold, 
Their best and brightest, when they dwelt on hers; 
Edith, whose pensive beauty, perfect else. 
But subject to the season or the mood. 
Shone like a mystic star between the less 
And greater glor}^ var^nng to and fro, 
We know not wherefore ; bounteously made, 
And yet so finely, that a troublous touch 
Thinn'd, or would seem to thin her in a day, 
A joyous to dilate, as toward the light. 
And these had been together from the first. 
LeoHn's first nurse was, five years after, hers: 
So much the boy foreran; but w^hen his date 
Doubled her own, for vs^ant of playmates, he 
(Since Averill was a decade and a half 
His elder, and their parents underground) 
Had tost his ball and flown his kite, and roll'd 
His hoop to pleasure Edith, with her dipt 
Against the rush of the air in the prone swing, 
Made blossom -ball or daisy chain, arrang'd 
Her garden, sow'd her name and kept it green 
In living letters, told her fairy-tales, 
Show'd her the fairy footings on the grass, 
The little dells of cowslip, fairy palms. 
The petty marestail forest, fairy pines. 
Or from the tiny pitted target blew 
What look'd a flight of fairy arrows aim'd 
All at one mark, all hitting: make-believes 
For Edith and himself: or else he forged, 
But that was later, boyish histories 
Of battle, bold adventure, dungeon, wreck, 
Flights, terrors, sudden rescues, and true love 
Crown'd after trial; sketches rude and faint, 
But where a passion yet unborn perhaps 
Lay hidden as the music of the moon 
Sleeps in the plain eggs of the nightingale. 
And thus together, save for college-times 
Or Temple-eaten terms, a couple, fiiir 
As ever painter j^ainted, poet sang. 
Or Heav'n in lavish bounty moulded, grew. 
And more and more, the maiden woman-grown, 



39 



610 ATLMERS FIELD. 



He "wasted hours \Anth Averill; there, when first 

The tented winter-field was broken up 

Into that phalanx of the summer spears 

That soon should wear the garland ; there again 

When burr and bine were gather'd : lastly there 

At Christmas; ever welcome at the Hall, 

On whose dull sameness his full tide of youth 

Broke with a phosphorescence cheering even 

My lady; and the Baronet yet had laid 

No bar between them : dull and self-involv'd, 

Tall and erect, but bendino- from his height 

With half-allowing smdes for all the world. 

And mighty courteous in the main — his pride 

Lay deeper than to wear it as his ring — 

He, like an Aylmer in his Aylmerism, 

Would care no more for Leolin's walking with her 

Than for his old Newfoundland's, when they ran 

To loose him at the stables, for he rose 

Twofooted at the limit of his chain. 

Roaring to make a third: and how should Love, 

Whom the cross-lightnings of four chance-met eyes 

Flash into fiery life from nothing, follow 

Such dear familiarities of dawn ? 

Seldom, but when he does, master of all. 

So these young hearts not knowing that they loved. 
Not she at least, nor conscious of a bar 
Between them, nor by plight or broken ring 
Bound, but an immemorial intimacy, 
Wander'd at will, but oft accompanied 
By Averill: his, a brother's love, that hung 
With wings of brooding shelter o'er her peace. 
Might have been other, save for Leolin's — 
Who knows? but so they wander'd, hour by hour 
Gather'd the blossom that rebloom'd, and drank 
The magic cup that fill'd itself anew. 

A whisper half reveal'd her to herself. 
For out beyond her lodges, where the brook 
Vocal, with here and there a silence, ran 
By sallowy rims, arose the laborers' homes, 
A frequent haunt of Edith, on low knobs 
That dimpling died into each other, huts 
At random scatter'd, each a nest in bloom. • 



ATLMERS FIELD. 



611 



Her art, her hand, her counsel all had wrought 

About them: here was one that, summer-blanch'd. 

Was parcel-bearded with the traveller's joy 

In Autumn, parcel ivy-clad; and here 

The warm-blue breathings of a hidden hearth 

Broke from a bower of vine and honeysuckle: 

One look'd all rosetree, and another wore 

A close-set robe of jasmine sown with stars: 

This had a rosy sea of gilly-flowers 

About it: this a milky-way on earth. 

Like visions in the Northern dreamer's heavens, 

A lily-avenue climbing to the doors; 

One, almost to the martin-haunted eaves 

A summer burial deep in hollyhock; 




Each, its own charm; and Edith's everywhere; 
And Edith ever visitant with him, 
He but less loved than Edith, of her poor; 
For she, so lowly-lovely and so loving, 
Queenly responsive when the loyal hand 
Rose from the clay it work'd in as she past, 
Not sowing hedgerow texts and passing by. 
Nor dealing goodly counsel from a height 



612 ATLMER'S FIELD. 



That makes the lowest hate it, but a voice 
Of comfort and an open liand of help, 
A splendid presence flattering the poor roofs 
Revered as theirs, but kindlier than themselves 
To ailing wife or wailing infancy 
Or old bedridden palsy, — was adored; 
He, loved for her and for himself. A grasp 
Having the warmth and muscle of the heart, 
A childly way with children, and a laugh 
Ringing like proven golden coinage true. 
Were no false passport to that easy realm. 
Where once with Leolin at her side the girl, 
Nursing a child, and turning to the warmth 
The tender pink five-beaded baby-soles. 
Heard the good mother softly whisper " Bless, 
God bless 'em; marriages are made in Heaven." 

A flash of semi-jealous}' clear'd it to her. 
My lady's Indian kinsman unannounc'd 
With half a score of swarthy faces came. 
His own, tho' keen and bold and soldierly, 
Sear'd by the close ecliptic, was not fair; 
Fairer his talk, a tongue that ruled the hour, 
Tho' seeming boastful: so when first he dash'd 
Into the chronicle of a deedful day. 
Sir Aylmer half forgot his lazy smile 
Of patron " Good! my lady's kinsman, good! " 
M}' lad}^ with her fingers interlock'd. 
And rotatory thumbs on silken knees, 
Call'd all her vital spirits into each ear 
To listen: unawares they flitted oflf, 
Busvinsr themselves about the floweras^-e 
That stood from out a stiflf brocade in which, 
The meteor of a splendid season, she. 
Once with this kinsman, ah so long ago, 
Stept thro' the stately minuet of those days: 
But Edith's eager fanc3' hurried ^vith him 
Snatch'd thro' the perilous passes of his life* 
Till Leolin ever watchful of her eye 
Hated him with a momentary hate. 
Wife-hunting, as the rumor ran, was he : 
I know not, for he spoke not, only shower'd 
His oriental gifts on every one. 
And most on Edith: like a storm he came. 
And shook the house, and like a storm he went. 



A2I^MER'S FIELD. 613 



Among the gifts he left her (possibly 
He flow'd and ebb'd uncertain, to return 
When others had been tested) there was one, 
A dagger, in rich sheath with jewels on it 
Sprinkled about in gold that branch'd itself 
Fine as ice-ferns on January panes 
Made by a breath. I know not whence at first, 
Nor of what race, the work; but as he told 
The story, storming a hill-fort of thieves 
He got it; for their captain after fight. 
His comrades having fought their last below. 
Was climbing up the valley; at whom he shot: 
Dowm from the beetling crag to which he clung 
Tumbled the tawny rascal at his feet, 
This dagger with him, v>^hich when now^ admir'd 
By Edith, whom his pleasure was to please, 
At once the costly Sahib yielded to her. 

And Leolin, coming after he was gone. 
Tost over all her presents petulantly : 
And when she show'd the w^ealthy scabbard, saying 
"Look what a lovely piece of workmanship!" 
Slight was his answ^er, " Well — I care not for it;" 
Then playing with the blade he prick'd his hand, 
" A gracious gift to give a lady, this! " 
" But would it be more gracious," ask'd the girl, 
" Were I to give this gift of his to one 
That is no lady? " " Gracious? No," said he. 
«' Me! — but I cared not for it. O pardon me, 
I seem to be ungraciousness itself." 
"Take it," she added sweetly, " tho' his gift; 
For I am more ungracious e'en than you, 
I care not for it either;" and he said 
" Why then I love it: " but Sir Aylmer past, 
And neither loved nor liked the thing he heard. 

The next day came a neighbor. Bliies and reds 
They talk'd of: blues were sure of it, he thought; 
Then of the latest fox — where started — kill'd 
In such a bottom : " Peter had the brush. 
My Peter, first: " and did Sir Aylmer know 
Tliat great pock-pitten fellow had been caught? 
Then made his pleasure echo, hand to hand. 
And rolling as it were the substance of it 



614 



ATLMER'S FIELD. 



Between his palms a moment up and down — 

" The birds ^vere warm, the birds were warm upon him 5 

We have him now;" and had Sir Ayhner heard — 

Nay, but he must — the land was ringing of it — 

This blacksmith-border marriage — one they knew — 

Raw from the nursery — who could trust a child? 

That cursed France with her egalities! 

And did Sir Aylmer (deferentially 

With nearing chair and lower'd accent) think — 

For people talk'd — that it was wholly wise 

To let that handsome fellow Averill walk 

So freely with his daughter? people talk'd — 

The boy might get a notion Into him ; 

The girl might be entangled ere she knew. 

Sir Aylmer Avlmer slo\vly stiffening — spoke: 

"The girl and boy, sir, know their differences!" 

" Good," said his friend, " but watch! " and he " Enough, 

More than enough, Sir! I can guard my own." 

They parted, and Sir Aylmer Aylmer watch'd. 

Pale, for on her the thunders of the liouse 
Had fallen first, was Edith that same nij^ht; 
Pale as the Jephtha's daughter, a rough piece 
Of early rigid color, under which, 
Withdrawing by the counter door to that 
Which Leolin open'd, she cast back upon him 
A piteous glance, and vanish'd. He, as one 
Caught in a burst of unexpected storm. 
And pelted with outrageous epithets. 
Turning beheld the Powers of the House 
On either side the hearth, indignant; her. 
Cooling her false cheek with a feather-fan, 
Him glaring, by his own stale devil spui r'd. 
And, like a beast hard-ridden, breathing hard. 
" Ungenerous, dishonorable, base. 
Presumptuous! trusted as he was with her. 
The sole succeeder to their Avealth, their lands, 
The last remaining pillar of their house, 
The one transmitter of their ancient name, 
Their child. "Our child!" " Our heiress!" "Ours!" for 

still, 
Like echoes fro in beyond a hollo^v, came 
Her sicklier iteration. Last he said 
"Boy, mark me! for your fortunes are to make, 
I sv^ear you shall not inake them out of mine. 



ATLMERS FIELD. 615 



Now inasmuch as you have practised on lier, 

Perplext her, made her half forget herself, 

Swerve from her duty to herself and us — 

Things in an Aylmer deem'd impossihle, 

Far as we track ourselves — 1 say that this, — 

Else I withdraw favor and countenance 

From you and yours forever — shall you do. 

Sir, when you see her — but you shall not see her— 

No, you shall write, and not to her, but me: 

And 3^ou shall say that having spoken with me, 

And after look'd into yourself, you find 

That you meant nothing — as indeed 3'ou know 

That you meant nothing. Such a match as this! 

Impossible, prodigious! " These were words, 

As meted by his measure of himself, 

Arguing boundless forbearance: after which, 

And Leolin's horror-stricken answer, " I 

So foul a traitor to myself and her. 

Never, O never," for about as long 

As the wind-hover hangs in balance, paused 

Sir Aylmer reddening from the storm within, 

Then broke all bounds of courtesy, and crjang 

" Boy, should I find you by my doors again 

My men shall lash you from them like a dog; 

Hence ! " with a sudden execration drove 

The footstool from before him, and arose; 

So, stammering " scoundrel " out of teeth that ground 

As In a dreadful dream, while Leolin still 

Retreated half-aghast, the fierce old man 

Follow'd, and under his own lintel stood 

Storming with lifted hands, a hoary face 

Meet for the reverence of the hearth, but now 

Beneath a pale and unimpassion'd moon, 

Vext with unworthy madness, and defonn'd. 

Slowly and conscious of the raging eye 
That watch'd him, till he heard the ponderous door 
Close, crashing with long echoes thro' the land, 
Went Leolin; then, his passions all in flood 
And masters of his motion, furiously 
Down thro' the bright lawns to his brother's ran, 
And foam'd away his heart at Averill's ear : 
Whom Averill solac'd as he might, amazed: 
The man was his, had been his father's, friend: 
He must have seen, himself had seen it long; 



616 ATLMER'S FIELD. 



He must have known, himself had known: besides, 

He never yet had set iiis daughter forth 

Here in the woman-markets of the west. 

Where our Caucasians let themselves be sold. 

Some one, he thought, had slander'd Leolin to him. 

^' Brother, for I have loved you more as son 

Than brother, let me tell you: I myself — 

What is their pretty saying? jilted, is it? 

Jilted I was : I say it for your peace. 

Pain'd, and, as bearing in myself the shame 

The woman should have borne, humiliated, 

I lived for years a stunted sunless life; 

Till after our good parents past away 

Watching your growth, I seem'd again to grow. 

Leolin, I almost sin in envying you: 

The very whitest lamb in all my fold 

Loves you: I know her: the worst thought she has 

Is whiter even than her pretty hand: 

She must prove true: for, brother, where two fight 

The strongest wins, and truth and love are strength, 

And you are happy : let her parents be." 

But Leolin cried out the more upon them — 
Insolent, brainless, heartless! heiress, wealth. 
Their wealth, their heiress! wealth enough was theirs 
For twenty matches. Were he lord of this. 
Why twenty boys and girls should marry on it. 
And forty blest ones bless him, and himself 
Be wealthy still, ay wealthier. He believed 
This filthy marriage-hindering Mammon made 
The harlot of the cities; nature crost 
Was mother of the foul adulteries 
That saturate soul with body. Name, tool name, 
Their ancient name! they flight be proud; its worth 
Was being Edith's. Ah hov7 pale she had look'd 
Darling, to-night! they must have rated her 
Beyond all tolerance. These old pheasant-lords. 
These partridge-breeders of a thousand years. 
Who, had mildevv'd in their thousands, doing nothing 
Since Egbert — why, the greater their disgrace ! 
Fall back upon a name! rest, rot in that! 
Not keep it noble, make it nobler? fools. 
With such a vantage-ground for nobleness! 
He had known a man, a quintessence of man, 
The life of all — who madly loved — and he. 



ATLMER'S FIELD. 



617 



Thwarted by one of these old father-fools, 
Had rioted his life out, and made an end. 
He would not do it! her sweet face and faith 
Held him from that: but he had powers, he knew it; 
Back would he to his studies, make a name, 
Name, fortune too: the world should ring of him 
To shame these mouldy Aylmers in their graves: 
Chancellor, or what is greatest, would he be — 
" O brother, I am grieved to learn your grief — 
Give me my fling, and let me say my say." 

At which, like one that sees his own excess. 
And easily forgives it as his own. 
He laugh'd; and then was mute; but presently 
Wept like a storm : and honest Averill seeing 
How low his brother's mood had fallen, fetch'd 
His richest beeswing from a binn reserv'd 







For banquets, praised the waning red, and told 
The vintage — when this Aylmer came of age- 



618 ATLMER'S FIELD, 



Then drank and past it: till at length the two 
Tho' Leolin flamed and fell again, agreed 
That much allowance must be made for men. • 
After an angry gleam this kindlier glow 
Faded with morning, but his purpose held. 

Yet once by night again the lovers met, 
A perilous meeting under the tall pines 
That darkened all the northward of her Hall. 
Him, to her meek and modest bosom prest 
In agony, she promis'd that no force, 
Persuasion, no, nor death, could alter her: 
He, passionately hopefuller, Avould go. 
Labor for his own Edith, and return 
In such a sunlight of prosperity 
He should not be rejected. " Write to me ! 
They loved me, and because I loved their child 
They hate me: there is war between us, dear. 
Which breaks all bonds but ours; we must remain 
Sacred to one another." So they talk'd. 
Poor children, for their comfort: the wind blew; 
The rain of heaven, and their own bitter tears, 
Tears, and the careless rain of heaven, mixt 
Upon their faces, as they kiss'd each other 
In darkness, and above them roar'd the pine. 

So Leolin w^ent; and as we task ourselves 
To learn a language known but smatteringly 
In phrases here and there at random, toil'd 
Mastering the lawless science of our law. 
That codeless myriad of precedent. 
That wilderness of single instances, 
Thro' which a few, by v^it or fortune led, 
Maj' beat a pathway out to wealth and fame. 
The jests, that flash'd about the pleader's room. 
Lightning of the hour, the pun, the scurrilous tale. 
Old scandals buried now seven decades deep 
In other scandals that have lived and died, 
And left the living scandal that shall die — 
A\"ere dead to him already; bent as he was 
To make disproof of scorn, and strong in liopes. 
And prodigal of all brain-labor he. 
Charier of sleep, and \vine and exercise. 
Except \vhen for a breathing-while at eve. 
Some niggard fraction of an hour, he ran 



ATLMER'S FIELD. 619 



Beside the river-bank : and then indeed 

Harder the times were, and the hands of power 

Were bloodier, and the according heitrts of men 

Seeni'd harder too; but the soft river-breeze, 

Which fann'd the gardens of that rival rose 

Yet fragrant in a heart remembering 

His former talks with Edith, on him breathed 

Far purelier in his rushings to and fro. 

After his books, to flush his blood vs^ith air, 

Then to his books again. My lady's cousin, 

Half-sickening of his pensioned afternoon. 

Drove in upon the student once or twice, 

Ran a Malayan muck against the times. 

Had golden hopes for France and all mankind, 

Answer'd all queries touching those at home 

With a heav'd shoulder and a saucy smile, 

And fain had haled him out into the world. 

And air'd him there: his nearer friend would say 

*' Screw not the cord too sharply lest it snap." 

Then left alone he pluck' d her dagger forth 

From where his worldless heart had kept it warm. 

Kissing his vows upon it like a knight. 

And wrinkled benchers often talk'd of him 

Approvingly, and prophesied his rise: 

For heart, I think, help'd head: her letters too, 

Tho' far between, and coming fitfully 

Like broken music, written as she found 

Or made occasion, being strictly watch'd. 

Charm' d him thro' every labyrinth till he saw 

An end, a hope, a light breaking upon him. 

But they that cast her spirit into flesh. 
Her worldly-wise begetters, plagued themselves 
To sell her, those good parents, for her good. 
Whatever eldest-born of rank or wealth 
Might lie within their compass, him they lured . 
Into their net made pleasant by the baits 
Of gold and beauty, wooing him to woo. 
So month by month the noise about their doors, 
And distant blaze of those dull banquets, made 
The nightly w^irer of their innocent hare 
Falter before he took it. All in vain. 
Sullen, defiant, pitying, wroth, return'd 
Leolin's rejected rivals from their suit 
So often, that the folly taking wings 



620 ATLMERS FIELD. 



Slipt o'er those lazy limits down the wind 

AVith rumor, and became in other fields 

A mockery to the yeoman over ale, 

And laughter to their lords: but those at home, 

As hunters round a hunted creature draw 

The cordon close and closer to^vard the death, 

Narrow'd her goings out and comings in; 

Forbad her first the house of Averill, 

Then closed her access to the wealthier farms. 

Last from her own home-circle of the poor 

They barr'd her: yet she bore it: yet her cheek 

Kept color: wondrous! but, O mystery! 

What amulet drew her down to that old oak, 

So old that twenty years before, a part 

Falling iiad let appear a brand of John — 

Once grovelike, each huge arm a tree, but now 

The broken base of a black tower, a cave 

Of touchwood, with a single flourishing spray, 

There the manorial lord too curiously 

Raking in that millennial touchwood-dust 

Found for himself a bitter treasure-trove; 

Burst his own wyvern on the seal, and read 

Writhing a letter from his child, for which 

Came at the moment Leolin's emissary, 

A crippl'd lad, and coming turn'd to fly. 

But scared with threats of jail and halter gave 

To him that flustered his poor parish wits 

The letter which he brought, and swore beside 

To play their go-between as heretofore 

Nor let them know themselves betray'd; and tlien, 

Soul-stricken at their kindness to him, went 

Hating his own lean heart and miserable. 

Thenceforward oft from out a despot dream 
The father j^anting woke, and oft, at dawn 
Arous'd the black republic on his elms. 
Sweeping the frothfly from the fescue, brush'd 
Thro' the dim meadow toward his treasure-trove, 
Seiz'd it, took home, and to my lady, — who, made 
A downward crescent of her minion mouth, 
Listless in all despondence, — read; and tore, 
As if the living passion symbol'd there 
Were living nerves to feel the rent; and burnt, 
NoAV chafing at his own great self defied, 
Now striking on huge stumbling-blocks of scorn 



ATLMER'S FIELD. ^21 



In babyisms, and dear diminutives 

Scatter'd all over the vocabulary 

Of such a love as like a chidden child, 

After much ^vailing, hush'd itself at last 

Hopeless of answer: then tho' Averill wrote 

And bade him with good heart sustain himself — 

All ^vould be well — the lover heeded not, 

But passionately restless came and Avent, 

And rustling- once at night about the place, 

There by a keeper shot at, slightly hurt. 

Raging return'd : nor ^vas it ^vell for her 

Kept to the garden now, and grove of pines, 

Watch'd even there ; and one was set to watch 

The watcher, and Sir Aylmer watch'd them all, 

Yet bitterer from his readings : once indeed, 

Warm'd with his wines or taking pride in her. 

She look'd so sweet, he kiss'd her tenderly 

Not knowing what possess'd him : that one kiss 

Was Leolin's one strong rival upon earth ; 

Seconded, for my lady follow'd suit, 

Seem'd hope's returning rose : and then ensued 

A Martin's summer of his faded love, 

Or ordeal by kindness; after this 

He seldom crost his child without a sneer; 

The mother flow'd in shallower acrimonies: 

Never one kindly smile, one kindly word : 

So that the gentle creature shut from all 

Her charitable use, and face to face 

With twentv months of silence, slo^vly lost 

Nor greatly cared to lose, her hold on life. 

Last, some low fever ranging round to spy 

The weakness of a people or a house, 

Like flies that haunt a ^vound, or deer, or men, 

Or almost all that is, hurting the hurt — 

Save Christ as we believe him — found the girl 

And flung her down upon a couch of fire, 

Where careless of the household faces near, 

And crying upon the name of Leolin, 

She, and with her the race of Aylmer, past. 

Star to star vibrates light: ma}- soul to soul 
Strike thro' a finer element of her own? 
So, — from afar, — touch us at once? or why 
That night, that moment, when she named his name, 
Did the keen shriek, "Yes love, yes Edith, yes," 



622 ATLMER'S FIELD. 



Shrill, till the comrade of his chambers woke, 
And came upon him half-arisen from sleep. 
With a weird bright eye, sweating and trembling, 
His hair as it were crackling into flames, 
His body half flung forward in pursuit. 
And his long arms stretch'd as to grasp a flyer; 
Nor knew he wherefore he had made the cry; 
And being much befool'cl and idioted 
By the rough amity of the other, sank 
As into sleep again. The second day, 
My lady's Indian kinsman rushing in, 
A breaker of the bitter news from home. 
Found a dead man, a letter edged with death 
Beside him, and the dagger which himself 
Gave Edith, redden'd wnth no bandit's blood: 
" From Edith " was engraven on the blade. 

Then Averill went and gazed upon his death. 
And when he came again, his flock believ'd — 
Beholding how the years which are not Time's 
Had blasted him — that many thousand days 
Were dipt by horror from his term of life. 
Yet the sad mother, for the second death. 
Scarce touch'd her thro' that nearness of the first. 
And being used to find her pastor texts, 
Sent to the harrow'd brother, praying him 
To speak before the people of her child. 
And fixt the Sabbath. Darkly that day rose : 
Autumn's mock sunshine of the faded woods 
Was all the life of it; for hard on these, 
A breathless burthen of low-folded heavens 
Stifled and chill'd at once; but every roof 
Sent out a listener: many too had known 
Edith among the hamlets round, and since 
The parents' harshness and the hapless loves 
And double death were widel}^ murmur'd, left 
Their own gray tower, or plain-faced tabernacle, 
To hear him; all in mourning these, and those 
With blots of it about them, ribbon, glove 
Or kerchief; while the church, — one night, except 
For greenish glimmerings thro' the lancets, — made 
Still paler the pale head of him, who tower'd 
Above them, with his hopes in either grave. 



ATLMERS FIELD. 



62a 



Long o'er his bent brows linger'd Averill, 
His face magnetic to the hand from which 
Livid he pliick'd it forth, and labor'd thro' 
His brief prayer-prelude, gave the verse, " Behold, 
Your house is left unto you desolate! " 
But laps'd into so long a pause again 
As half qmaz'd, half frighted all his flock: 
Then from his heig-ht and loneliness of grief 
Bore down in flood, and dash'd his angry heart 
Against the desolations of the world. 



Never since our bad earth became one sea, 
Which rolling o'er the palaces of the proud, 
And all but those who knew the living God — 




Eight that were left to make a purer world — 
When since had flood, fire, earthquake, thunder, wrought 
Such waste and havoc as the idolatries, 
W^hich from the low light of mortality- 
Shot up their shadows to the Heaven of Heavens, 
And worshipt their own darkness as the Highest? 
" Gash thyself, priest, and honor thy brute Baal, 
And to thy worst self sacrifice thyself. 
For with thy worst self hast thou clothed thy God." 
Then came a Lord in no wise like to Baal. 
The babe shall lead the lion. Surely now 
The wilderness shall blossom as the rose. 
Crown thyself, worm, and worship thine own lusts! — 
No coarse and blockish God of acreage 



624 



ATLMERS FIELD. 



Stands at thy gate for thee to grovel to — 

Thy God is far diffused in noble groves 

And princely halls, and farms, and flowing lawns. 

And heaps of living gold that daily grow% 

And title-scrolls and gorgeous heraldries. 

In such a shape dost thou behold thy God. 

Thou wilt not gash thy flesh for hivi ; for thine 

Fares richly, in fine linen, not a hair 

Ruffled upon the scarfskin, even while 

The deathless ruler of thv dving: house 

Is wounded to the death that cannot die ; 

And tho' thou numberest ^vith the followers 

Of One who cried " Leave all and follow me, " 

Thee therefore with His light about thy feet, 

Thee with His message ringing in thine ears, 

Thee shall thy brother man, the Lord from Heaven, 

Born of a village girl, carpenter's son, 

Wonderful, Prince of peace, the Mighty God, 

Count the more base idolater of the two; 

Crueller: as not passing thro' the fire 

Bodies, but souls — thy children's — thro' the smoke, 

The blisrht of low desires — darkening- thine own 

To thine own likeness; or if one of these, 

Thy better born unhappily from thee. 

Should, as bv miracle, grow straight and fair — 

Friends, I was bid to speak of such a one 

By those who most have cause to sorrow for her — 

Fairer than Rachel by the palmy well. 

Fairer than Ruth among the fields of corn, 

Fair as the Angel that said " hail " she seem'd, 

Who entering fiU'd the house with sudden light. 

For so mine own was brighten'd : where indeed 

The roof so lowly but that beam of Heaven 

Dawn'd sometimes thro' the doorway? whose the babe 

Too ragged to be fondled on her lap, 

Warm'd at her bosom? The poor child of shame, 

The common care, whom no one cared for, leapt 

To greet her, wasting his forgotten heart. 

As with the mother he had never known, 

In gambols; for her fresh and innocent eyes 

Had such a star of morning in their blue, 

That all neglected places of the field 

Broke into nature's music when they saw her. 

Low was her voice, but won mysterious way 

Thro' the seal'd ear, to v\'hich a louder one 



ATLMER'S FIELD. 625 



Was all but silence — free of alms her hand — 

The hand that robed your cottage-Wall with flowers 

Has often toil'd to clothe 3'our little ones; 

How often placed upon the sick man's brow . 

Cool'd it, or laid his feverous pillow smooth! 

Had you one sorrow and she shared it not? 

One burthen and she would not lighten it? 

One spiritual doubt she did not soothe? 

Or when some heat of difference sparkled out, 

How sweetly would she glide between your wraths, 

And steal you from each other! for she walk'd 

Wearing the light yoke of that Lord of love, 

Who still'd the rolling waves of Galilee! 

And one— of him I was not bid to speak — 

Was always with her, whom you also knew. 

Him too you loved, for he w^as worthy love. 

And these had been together from the first; 

They might have been together till the last. 

Friends, this frail bark of ours, when sorely tried, 

May wreck itself without the pilot's guilt. 

Without the captain's knowledge: hope with me. 

Whose shame is that, if he went hence with shame? 

Nor mine the fiiult, if losing both of these 

I cry to vacant chairs and widow'd walls, 

" My house is left unto me desolate." 

While thus he spoke, his hearers wept; but some, 
Sons of the glebe, with other frowns than those 
That knit themselves for summer shadows, scowl'd 
At their great lord. He, when it seem'd he saw 
No pale sheet-lightnings from afar, but fork'd 
Of the near storm, and aiming at his head. 
Sat anger-charm'd from sorrow, soldier-like, 
Erect; but when the preacher's cadence flow'd 
Softening through all the gentle attributes 
Of his lost child, the wife, who watch'd his face. 
Paled at a sudden twitch of his iron mouth; 
And, " O i^ray God that he hold up," she thought, 
" Or surely I shall shame myself and him." 

" Nor yours the blame — for who beside your hearths 
Can take her place — if echoing me you cry 
' Our house is left unto us desolate? ' 
But thou, O thou that killest, hadst thou known, 
40 



62f5 ATLMER'S FIELD. 



O thou that stonest, hadst thou understood 

The things belonging to thy peace and ours! 

Is there no prophet but the voice that calls 

Doom upon kings, or in the waste ' Repent? ' 

Is not our own child on the narrow way, 

Who down to those that saunter in the broad 

Cries, ' Come up hither,' as a prophet to us? 

Is there no stoning save with flint and rock? 

Yes, as the dead we weep for testify — 

No desolation but by sword and fire? 

Yes, as your moanings witness, and myself 

Am lonelier, darker, earthlier for m}' loss. 

Give me your prayers, for he is past your prayers. 

Not past the living fount of pity in Heaven. 

But I that thought myself long-suffering, meek, 

Exceeding ' poor in spirit ' — how the words 

Have twisted back upon themselves and mean 

Vileness, we are grown so proud — I wish VI my voice 

A rushing tempest of the wrath of God 

To blow these sacrifices thro' the world — 

Sent like the twelve-divided concubine 

To inflame the tribes; but there — out yonder — earth 

Lightens from her own central Hell — O there 

The red fruit of an old idolatry — 

The heads of chiefs and princes fall so fast, 

They cling together in the ghastly sack — 

The land all shambles — naked marriages 

Flash from the bridge, and ever-murder'd France, 

By shores that darken with the gathering wolf. 

Runs in a river of blood to the sick sea. 

Is this a time to madden madness then? 

Was this a time for these to flaunt their pride? 

Mav Pharaoh's darkness, folds as dense as those 

Which hid the Holiest from the people's eyes 

Ere the great death, shroud this great sin from all : 

Doubtless our narrow world must canvass it; 

Oj rather prav for those and pity them 

Who thro' their own desire accompllsh'd bring 

Their own gray hairs with sorrow to the grave — 

Who broke the bond v/hich they desired to break — 

Which else had link'd their race with times to come- 

Who wove coarse webs to snare her purity. 

Grossly contriving their dear daughter's good — 

Poor souls, and knew not what they did, but sat 

Ignorant, devising their own daughter's death! 

May not that earthly chastisement suffice? 



ATLMER'S FIELD, 62' 



Have not our love and reverence left them bare? 

Will not another take their heritage? 

Will there be children's laughter in their hall 

Forever and forever, or one stone 

Left on another, or is it a light thing 

That I tiieir guest, their host, their ancient friend, 

I made by these the last of all my race 

Must cry to these the last of theirs; as cried 

Christ ere His agony to those that swore 

Not by the temple but the gold, and made 

Their own traditions God, and slew the Lord, 

And left their memories a world's curse — ' Behold, 

Your house is left unto you desolate.' " 

Ended he had not, but she brook'd no more; 
Long since her heart had beat remorselessly, 
Her crampt-up sorrow pain'd her, and a sense 
Of meanness in her unresisting life. 
Then their eyes vext her; for on entering 
He had cast the curtains of their seat aside — 
Black velvet of the costliest — she herself 
Had seen to that: fain had she closed them now, 
Yet dared not stir to do it, only near'd 
Her husband inch by inch, but when she laid 
Wifelike, her hand in one of his, he veil'd 
His face with the other, and at once as falls 
A creeper when the prop is broken, fell 
The woman shrieking at his feet, and swoon'd. 
Then her own people bore along the nave 
Her pendant hands, and narro\v meagre face 
Seam'd with the shallow cares of fifty years: 
And her the Lord of all the landscape round 
Ev'n to its last horizon, and of all 
Who peer'd nt him so keenly, follow'd out 
Tall ond erect, but in the middle aisle 
Reel'd, as a footsore ox in crowded ways 
Stumbling across the market to his death, 
Unpitied; for he groped as blind, and seem'd 
Always about to fall, grasping the pews 
And oaken finials till he touch' d the door; 
Yet to the lychgate, vvdiere his chariot stood, 
Strode from the porch, tall and erect again. 

But nevermore did either pass the gate 
Save under pall w^ith bearers. In one month, 



628 ATLMERS FIELD. 



Thro' weary and yet ever wearier hours, 

The childless mother went to seek her child; 

And when he felt the silence of his house 

About him, and the change and not the change, 

And those fixt eyes of painted ancestors 

Staring forever from their gilded \valls 

On him their last descendant, his own head 

Began to droop, to fall; the man became 

Imbecile; his one word was " desolate; " 

Dead for two years before his death was he; 

But when the second Christmas came, escap'd 

His keepers, and the silence which he felt. 

To find a deeper in the narrow gloom 

By wife and child; nor wanted at his end 

The dark retinue reverencing death 

At golden thresholds; nor from tender hearts. 

And those who sorrow'd o'er a vanish'd race. 

Pity, the violet on the tyrant's grave. 

Then the great Hall w^as wholly broken down, 

And the broad woodland parcell'd into farms; 

And where the two contriv'd their daughter's good. 

Lies the hawk's cast, the mole has made his run. 

The hedgehog underneath the plantain bores, 

The rabbit fondles his ow^n harmless face. 

The slow-worm creeps, and the thin weasel there 

Follows the mouse, and all is open field. 




SEA DREAMS. 



629 



SEA DREAMS. 




CITY clerk, but gently born and bred; 
His wife, an unknown artist's orphan child — 
One babe was theirs, a Maro;aret, three years old; 
They, thinking that her clear germander eye 
Droopt in the giant-factoried city-gloom, 
£s^ Came, with a month's leave given them, to the 
^jf^- sea: 

For which his gains were dock'd, however small; 
Small were his gains, and hard his work; besides, 
Their slender household fortunes (for the man 
Had risk'd his little) like the little thrift. 
Trembled in perilous places o'er a deep; 
And oft, when sitting all alone, his face 
Would darken, as he curs'd his credulousness. 
And that one unctuous mouth which lured him, rogue, 
To buy strange shares in some Peruvian mine. 
Now seaward-bound for health they gain'd a coast, 
All sand and clifFand deep-inrunning cave. 
At close of day; slept, woke, and went the next, 
The Sabbath, pious variers from the chui-ch, 
To chapel ; where a heated pulpiteer, 
Not preaching simple Christ to simple men, 
Announc'd the coming doom, and fulminated 
Against the scarlet woman and her creed: 
For sideways up he swung his arms, and shriek'd, 
" Thus, thus, with violence," ev'n as if he held 
The Apocalyptic millstone, and himself 
Were that great Angel; " Thus with violence 
Shall Babylon be cast into the sea; 
Then comes the close." The gentle-hearted wife 
Sat shuddering at the ruin of a world: 
He at his own; but when the wordy storm 
Had ended, forth they came and paced the shore, 
Ran in and out the long sea-framing caves. 
Drank the large air, and saw, but scarce believ'd 
(The sootflake of so many a summer still 
Clung to their ftmcies) that they saw, the sea. 



630 SEA DREAMS. 



So now on sand they walk'd, and now on cliff, 

Lingering about the thymy promontories, 

Till all the sails ^vere darken'd in the west, 

And rosed in the east: then homeward and to bed: 

Where she, who kept a tender Christian hope 

Haunting a holy text, and still to that 

Returning, as the bird returns, at night, 

" Let not tlie sun go down upon your \vrath." 

Said, "Love, forgive him: " but he did not speak; 

And silenc'd by that silence lay the wife. 

Remembering her dear Lord who died for all, 

And musing on the little lives of men, 

And how they mar this little by their feuds. 

But while the two were sleeping, a full tide 
Rose with ground-swell, which, on the foremost rocks 
Touching, upjetted in spirit of wild sea-smoke, 
And scaled in sheets of wasteful foam, and fell 
In vast sea-cataracts — ever and anon 




Dead claps of thunder from within the cliffs 

Heard thro' the living roar. At this the babe. 

Their Margaret cradled near them, waiiVl and woke 

The mother, and the father suddenly cried, 

" A wreck, a wreck! " then turn'd, and groaning said, 

" Forgive! How many will say, ' Forgive,' and find 
A sort of absolution in the sound 
To hate a little longer! No; the sin 
That neither God nor man can well forgive, 
Hypocrisy, I saw it in him at once. 
Is it so true that second thoughts are best.'' 



SEA BREAMS. 681 



Not first, and third, which are a riper first? 
Too ripe, too late! they come too late for use. 
Ah love, there surely lives in man and beast 
Something divine to v^arn them of their foes; 
And such a sense, when I first fronted him, 
Said <- Trust him not; ' but after, when I came 
To know him more, I lost it, knew him less; 
Fought with what seem'd m}^ own uncharity: 
Sate at his table-; drank his costly wines; 
Made more and more allowance for his talk ; 
Went further, fool! and trusted him with all. 
All my poor scrapings from a dozen years 
Of dust and deskwork; there is no sucli mine, 
None; but a gulf of ruin, swallowing gold, 
Not making. Ruin'd! ruin'd ! the sea roars 
Ruin: a fearful night ! " 

"Not fearful; fair," 
Said the good wife, " if every star in heaven 
Can make it fair: you do but hear the tide. 
Had you ill dreams ? " 

" O yes," he said, '' I dream 'd 
Of such a tide swelling toward the land, 
And I from out the boundless outer deep 
Swept with it to the shore, and enter'd one 
Of those dark caves that run beneath the cliffs. 
I thought the motion of the boundless deep 
Bore through the cave, and I was heaved upon it 
In darkness: then I saw one lovely star 
Larger and larger. ' What a world,' I thought, 
* To live in! ' but in moving on I found 
Only the landward exit of the cave, 
Bright with the sun upon the stream beyond: 
And near the light a giant woman sat. 
All over earthy, like a piece of earth, 
A pickaxe in her hand : then out I slipt 
Into a land all sun and blossom, trees 
As high as heaven, and every bird that sings: 
And here the night-light flickering in my eyes 
Awoke me." 



" That was then your dream," she said, 
« Not sad, but sweet." 



632 SEA DREAMS. 



" So sweet, I lay," said he, 
" And mused upon it, drifting up the stream 
In fancy, till I slept again, and pierc'd 
The broken vision; for I dream'd that still 
The motion of the great deep bore me on. 
And that the woman \valk"'d upon the brink: 
I wonder'd at her strength, and ask'd her of it: 
* It came,' she said, 'by working in the mines:' 

then to ask her of my shares, I thought; 
And ask'd; but not a word; she shook her head. 
And then the motion of the current ceased, 
And there was rolling thunder; and we reach'd 
A mountain, like a wall of burrs and thorns; 
But she with her strong feet up the steep hill 
Trod out a path: I foUow'd; and at top 

She pointed seaward: there a fleet of glass. 

That seem'd a fleet of jewels under me. 

Sailing along before a gloomy cloud 

That not one moment ceased to thunder, past 

In sunshine; right across its track there lay, 

Down in the water, a long reef of gold, 

Cr what seem'd gold: and I was glad at first 

To think that in our often-ransack'd world 

Still so much gold was left; and then I fear'd 

Lest the gay navy there should splinter on it. 

And fearing waved my arm to warn them oflf; 

An idle signal, for the brittle fleet 

(I thought I could have died to save it) near'd, 

Touch'd, clink'd, and clash'd, and vanish'd, and I woke, 

1 heard the clash so clearly. Now I see 

My dream was Life; the woman honest Work; 
And my poor venture but a fleet of glass, 
Wreck'd on a reef of visionary gold." 

" Nay," said the kindly wife, to comfort him, 
" You raised your arm, you tumbled down and broke 
The glass with little Margaret's medicine in it; 
And, breaking that, you made and broke vour dream: 
A trifle makes a dream, a trifle breaks." 

"No trifle," groan'd the husband; "yesterday 

I met him suddenly in tlie street, and ask'd 

That which I ask'd the woman in my dream. 

Like her, he shook his head. ' Show me the books! ' 




" And near the light a giant woman sat, 
All over earthy, like a piece of earth, 
A pickaxe in her hand." 

See page 6ji. 



SBA DREAMS. 633 



He dodg'd me with a long and loose account. 

' The books, the books! ' but he, he could not M^'ait, 

Bound on a matter of life and death: 

When the great Books (see Daniel seven and ten) 

Were open'd, I should find he meant me well: 

And then began to bloat himself, and ooze 

All over with the fat affectionate smile 

That makes the widow lean. ' My dearest friend, 

Have faith, have faith! We live by faith,' said he; 

* And all things work together for the good 
Of those ' — it makes me sick to quote him — last 
Gript my hand hard, and with God-bless-you went. 
I stood like one that had received a blow: 

I found a hard friend in his loose accounts, 
A loose one in the hard grip of his hand, 
A curse in his God-bless-you: then my eyes 
Pursued him down the street, and far away 
Among the honest shoulders of the crowd. 
Read rascal in the motions of his back, 
And scoundrel in the supple-sliding knee." 

" Was he so bound, poor soul? " said the good wife; 
" So are we all: but do not call him, love. 
Before you prove him, rogue, and proved, forgive. 
His gain is loss; for he that wrongs his friend 
Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about 
A silent court of justice in his breast. 
Himself the judge and jury, and himself 
The prisoner at the bar, ever condemned : 
And that drags down his life: then comes what comes 
Hereafter: and he meant, he said he meant. 
Perhaps he meant, or partly meant, you well." 

" ' With all his conscience, and one eye askew '-— 
Love, let me quote these lines, that you may learn 
A man is likewise counsel for himself, 
Too often, in that silent court of yours — 

* With all his conscience and one eye askew. 
So false, he partly took himself for true; 
Whose pious talk, when most his heart was drv. 
Made wet the crafty crowsfoot round his eye; 
Who, never naming God except for gain. 

So never took that useful name in vain ; 
Made Him his catspaw and the Cross his tool. 



634 SEA DREAMS. 



And Christ the bait to trap his dupe and fool; 
Nor deeds of gift, but gifts of grace he forged, 
And snakelike slimed his victim ere he gorged; 
And oft at Bible meetings, o'er the rest 
Arising, did his holy oily best, 
Dropping the too rough H in Hell and Heaven, 
To spread the word by which himself had thriven.' 
How like you this old satire?" 

" Nay," she said, 
"I loathe it: he had never kindly heart, 
Xor ever cared to better his own kind. 
Who first wrote satire with no pity in it. 
But will you hear viy dream, for I liad one 
That altogether went to music? Still 
It awed me." 

Then she told it, having dream'd 
Of that sanie coast. 

" — But round the North, a light, 
A belt, it seem'd, of luminous vapor, lay, 
And ever in it a low musical note 
Swell'd up and died; and, as it swell'd, a ridge 
Of breaker issued from the belt, and still 
Grew with the growing note, and ^vhen the note 
Had reach'd a thunderous fulness, on those cliffs 
Broke, mixt with awful light (the same as that 
Living within the belt) whereby she sa^v 
That all those lines of cliffs were cliffs no more, 
But huge cathedral fronts of ever}- age. 
Grave, florid, stern, as far as eye could see, 
One after one: and then the great ridge dreA\^, 
Lessening to the lessening music, back. 
And past into the belt and swell'd again 
Slowly to music: ever when it broke 
The statues, king or saint, or founder, fell; 
Then from the gaps and chasms of ruin left 
Canle men and women in dark clusters round. 
Some crving ' Set them up! they sh.all not fall!' 
And others, ' Let them lie, for they have fall'n.' 
And still they strove and wrangled : and she grieved 
In her strange dream, she knew not why, to find 
Their wildest wailino^s never out of tune 



SEA DREAMS. 635 



With that sweet note; and ever as their shrieks 
Ran highest up tiie gamut, that great wave 
Returning, while none mark'd it, on the crowd 
Broke, mixt with awful light, and show'd their eyes 
Glaring, and passionate looks, and swept away 
The men of flesh and blood, and men of stone, 
To the waste deeps together. 

« Then I fixt 
My wistful eyes on two fair images. 
Both crovvni'd with stars and high among the stars, — 
The Virgin Mother standing with her child 
High up on one of those dark minster-fionts — 
Till she began to totter, and the child 
Clung to the mother, and sent out a cry 
Which mixt with little Margaret's, and I woke. 
And my dream awed me: — well — but what are dreams? 
Yours came from the breaking of a glass. 
And mine but from the crying of a child." 

"Child? No!" said he, « but this tide's roar, and his, 
Our Boanerges, with his threats of doom. 
And loud-lung'd Antibabylonianisms 
( Altho' I grant but little music there) 
Went both to make your dream: but if there were 
A music harmonizing our wild cries. 
Sphere-music such as that you dream'd about, 
Wh}', that would make our passions far too like 
The discords dear to the musician. IMo — 
One shriek of hate would jar all the h^mns of heaven; 
True Devils with no ear, they howl in tune 
With nothing but the Devil!" 

" ' True' indeed! 
One of our town, but later by an hour 
Here than ourselves, spoke with me on the shore; 
While you were running down the sands, and made 
The dimpled flounce of the sea-furbelow flap. 
Good man, to please the child. She brought strange news. 
Why were you silent when I spoke to-night? 
I had set my heart on your forgiving him 
Before you knew. We must forgive the dead." 

" Dead! who is dead? " 



636 SBA DREAMS. 



" The man your eye jDursued. 
A little after you had parted with him, 
He suddenly dropt dead of heart-disease." 

" Dead ? he ? of heart-disease ? what heart had he 
To die of? dead!" 

" Ah, dearest, if there be 
A devil in man, there is an angel too. 
And if he did that wrong you charge him with. 
His angel broke his heart. But your rough voice 
(You spoke so loud) has roused the child agam. 
Sleep, little birdie, sleep! will she not sleep 
Without her ' little birdie .? ' well then, sleep, 
And I will sing you 'birdie.' " 

Saying this, 
The woman half turn'd round from hmi she loved. 
Left him one hand, and reaching thro' the night 
Her other, found (for it was close beside) 
And half embrac'd the basket cradle-head 
With one soft arm, which, like the pliant bough 
That moving moves the nest and nestling, sway'd 
The cradle, while she sang this baby song. 



What does little birdie say 
In her nest at peep of day ? 
Let me fly, says little birdie, 
Mother, let me fly away. 
Birdie, rest a little longer, 
Till the little \vings are stronger, 
So she rests a little longer, 
Then she flies away. 

What does little baby say, 
In her bed at peep of day.? 
Baby says, like little birdie, 
Let me rise and fly away. 
Baby, sleep a little longer. 
Till the little limbs are stronger, 
If she sleeps a little longer. 
Baby too shall fly away. 



' She sleeps: let us too, let all evil, sleep. 
He also sleeps — another sleep than ours. 



NORTHERN FARMER. 



687 



He can do no more wron^: forgive him, dear, 
And I shall sleep the sounder." 

Then the man, 
*' His deeds yet live, the worst is yet to come. 
Yet let your sleep for this one night be sound: 
I do forgive him! " 

"Thanks, my love," she said, 
" Your own will be the sweeter," and they slept. 



^^^|g-53f^:$<— 



NORTHERN FARMER, 



OLD STYLE. 




HEER 'asta bean saw long and mea liggin' 'ere aloan? 
Noorse? thoort nowt o' a noorse; whoy. Doctor's 

abean on' agoan: 
Says that I moant 'a naw moor yaale: but 1 beant a 

fool : 
Git ma my yaale, for I beant a-gooin' to break my rule. 



Doctors, they knaws nowt, for a says what's nawways true: 
Naw soort o' koind o' use to saay the things that a do. 
I've 'ed my pint o' yaale ivry noight sin' I bean 'ere. 
An' I 've 'ed my quart ivry market-noight for foorty year. 

Parson 's a bean loikewoise, an' a sittin' 'ere o' my bed. 
" The amoighty 's a taakin' o' you to 'issen, my friend," 'a said, 
An' a towd ma my sins, an 's toithe were due, an' I gied it in bond ; 
I done my duty by un, as I 'a done by the lond. 



Larn'd a ma' bea. I reckons I 'annot sa mooch to larn. 
But a cost oop, thot a did, 'boot Bessy Marris's barn. 



688 NORTHERN FARMER. 



Thof a knaws I hallus voated \vi' vSquoire an' choorch an' staate, 
An' i' the woost q' times I wur niver agin the raate. 

An' I haUus corned to 's choorch afoor my Sall}^ wur dead, 
An' 'eerd un a bummin' awaay loike a buzzard-clock * ower my yead, 
An' I niver knaw'd whot a mean'd but I thowt a 'ad summut to saa}^, 
An' I thowt a said whot a owt to a' said an' I coomed awaj^ 

Bessy Marris's barn! tha knaws she hiaid it to mea. 
Mowt a bean, mayhap, for she wur a bad un, shea. 
'Siver, I kep un, my lass, tha mun understond; 
I done my duty by un, as I 'a done by the lond. 

But Parson a comes an' a goos, an' a says it easy an' freea 

" The amoighty 's a taakin o' you to 'issen, my friend," says 'ea. 

I weant saay men be loiars, thof summun said it in 'aaste: 

But a reads wonn sarmin a weeak, an' I 'a stubb'd Thornahy waaste. 

D' ya moind the waaste, my lass? naw, naw, tha was not born then; 

Theer wur a boggle In it, I often ' erd un mysen: 

Moast loike a butter-bump, •}" for I 'eerd un aboot an aboot, 

But I stubb'd un oop wi' the lot, and raaved an' rembled un oot. 

Keaper's it wur; fo' they fun un theer a laaid on 'is faace 
Doon i' the woil 'enemies J afore I comed to the plaace. 
Noaks or Thimbleby — toner 'ed shot an as dead as a naail. 
Noaks wur 'ang'd fur it oop at 'soize — but git ma my yaale. 

Dubbut looak at the waaste: theer war n't not fead for a cow; 
Nowt at all but bracken an' fuzz, an' looak at it now — 
War n't worth nowt a haacre, an' now theer 's lots o' feead, 
Fourscoore yows upon it an' some on it doon in seead. 

Nobbut a bit on it 's left, an' I mean'd to 'a stubb'd it at fall, 
Done it ta-year I mean'd, an' runn'd plow thrufF it an' all, 
If godamoighty an' parson 'ud nobbut let ma aloan, 
Mea, wi' haate oonderd haacre o' Squoire's an' lond o' my oan. 

Do godamoighty knaw what a 's doing a-taakin' o' mea? 

I beant wonn as saws 'ere a bean an' yonder a pea; 

An' Squoire 'ull be sa mad an' all — a' dear a' dear! 

An' I 'a monaged for Squoire come Michaelmas thirty year. 



Cockchafer. +Bittern. JAncinones. 



NORTHERN FARMER. 639 



A mowt 'a taaken Joanes, as 'ant a 'aaporth o' sense, 
Or a mowt 'a taaken Robins — a niver mended a fence: 
But godamoighty a moost taake mea an' taake ma now 
Wi' auf the cows to cauve an' Thornaby holms to 2:)low! 

Looak 'ow quoloty smoiles when they seeas ma passin' by, 

Says to thessen naw doot " whot a mon a be sewer-ly! " 

For they knaws what I bean to Squoire sin fust a coomed to the 'All; 

I done my duty b}^ Squoire an' I done my duty by all. 

Squoire 's in Lunnon, an' summun I reckons 'ull 'a to wroite, 
For \vhoa 's to howd the lond ater mea thot muddles ma quoit; 
Sartin-sewer I bea, thot a \veant niver give it to Joanes, 
Noither a moant to Robins — a niver rembles the stoans. 

But summun '11 come ater mea mayhap wi' 'is kittle o' steam 
Huzzin' an' maazin' the blessed fealds wi' the Divil's oan team. ■ 
Gin I mun doy I mun doy, an' loife they says is sweet. 
But gin I mun doy I mun doy, for I couldn abear to see it. 

What atta stannin' theer for, an' doesn bring ma the yaale? 
Doctor 's a tottler, lass, and a 's hallus i' the own taale: 
I weant break rules fur Doctor, a knaws naw moor nor a floy; 
Git ma my yaale I tell tha, an' gin I mun doy I mun doy. 



NORTHERN FARMER, 



NEW STYLE. 



|m|ll OSN'T thou 'ear my 'erse's legs, as they canters awaay? 
lil|PProputty, proputty, proputty — that's what I 'ears 'em saay. 
^ Proputty, proputty, proputty — Sam, thou's an ass for thy paains; 
Theer's moor sense i' one o' 'is legs nor in all thy braains. 

Woa — theer's a craw to pluck wi' tha, Sam: 3^on 's parson's 'ouse- 
Dosn't thou knaw that a man mun be eather a man or a mouse? 
Time to think on it then; for thou'll be twenty to weeak.* 
Proputty, proputty — woa then woa — let ma 'ear mysen speak. 

* This week. 



640 NORTHERN FARMER. 



Me an' thy muther, Sammy, 'as bean a-talkin' o' thee; 
Thou's bean talkin' to muther, an' she bean a telHn it me. 
Thou'll not marry for mimny — thou's sweet ujoo' parson's lass — 
Noa- — thou'll marry for luvv — an' we boath on us thinks tha an ass. 

Seea'd her todaay goa by — Saaint's daay- — they was ringing the bells. 
She's a beauty thou thinks — an' soa is scoors o' gells, 
Them as 'as munny an' all — wot 's a beauty ? — the flower as blaws. 
But proputty, proputty sticks, an' propulty, proputty graws. 

Do'ant be stunt:* taake time: I knaws what maakes tha sa mad. 
Warn't I craazed fur the lasses mysen when I wur a lad? 
But I knaw'd a Quaaker feller as often 'as towd ma this: 
" Doant thou marry for munny, but goa wheer munny is! " 

An' I went wheer munny war: an' thy muther coom to 'and, 

Wi' lots o' munny laaid by, an' a nicetish bit o' land. 

Maybe she waarn't a beauty : — I niver give it a thowt — 

But warn't she as good to cuddle an' kiss as a lass as 'ant nowt? 

Parson's lass 'ant nowt, an' she weant 'a now^t when 'e 's dead, 
Mun be a guvness, lad, or summut, and addle-j* her bread: 
Why? fur e' 's nobbut a curate, an' weant niver git naw 'igher; 
An' 'e maade the bed as 'e ligs on afoor 'e coom'd to the shire. 

An' thin 'e coom'd to the parish wi' lots o' 'Varsity debt, 
Stook to his taail they did, an' 'e 'ant got shut on 'em yet. 
An' 'e ligs on 'is back i' the grip, wi' noan to lend 'im a shove, 
Woorse nor a far-welter'dj yowe: fur Sammy, 'e married fur luvv. 

Luvv? What's luvv? thou can luvv thy lass an' her munny too, 
Maakin' 'em goa togither as they've good right to do. 
Coiild'n I luvv thy muther by cause o' 'er munny laid by? 
Naay — for I luvv'd 'er a vast sight moor fur it: reason why. 

Ay an' thy muther says thou wants to marry the lass. 
Comes of a gentleman burn: an' we boath on us thinks tha an ass. 
Woa then, proputty, wiltha? — an ass as near as mays nowt|| — 
Woa then, wiltha ? dangtha ! — the bees is as fell as owt.§ 



* Obstinate, t Earn. % Or fow- welter'd— said of a sheep lying on its back in a furrow. 
\ Makes nothing. § The flies are as fierce as anything. 



RESqUIBSCAT, 



641 



Break me a bit o' the esh for his 'ead, lad, out o' the fence! 
Gentleman burn! what 's gentleman burn: is it shillins an pence? 
Proputty, proputty 's ivrything 'ere, an', Sammy, I'm blest 
If it isn't the saame oop yonder, fur them as 'as it 's the best. 

Tis'n them as 'as munny as breaks into 'ouses an' steals. 
Them as 'as coats to their backs an' taakes their regular meals. 
Noa, but it's them as niver knaws wheer a meal 's to be 'ad. 
Taake my word fur it, Sammy, the poor in a loomp is bad. 



Them or thir feythers, tha sees, mun 'a' bean a lazy lot, 
Fur work mun 'a gone to the gittin' Avhiniver munny was got. 
Feyther 'ad ammost nowt; leastwaays 'is munny was 'id 
But 'e tued an' moil'd issen dead, an' 'e died a good un, 'e did. 

Looak thou theer wheer Wrigglesby beck comes out by the 'ill! 
Feyther run up to the farm, an' I runs up to the mill; 
An' I'll run up to the brig, an' that thou'll live to see; 
An' if thou marries a good un I'll leave the land to thee. 

Thim's my noations, Sammy, wheerby I means to stick; 
But if thou marries a bad un, I'll leave the land to Dick. — 
Coom oop, proputty, proputty — that's what I 'ears 'im saay — 
Proputty, proputty, proputty — canter an' canter awaay. 



>$=S^"gK^^C:^- 



BESQUIESCAT. 




AIR is her cottage in its place. 

Where yon broad water sweetly, slowly glides. 
^n^It sees itself from thatch to base 
Dream in the sliding tides. 

And fairer she, but ah, hov>^ soon to die! 

Her quiet dream of life this hour may cease. 
Her peaceful being slowly passes by 

To some more perfect peace. 



41 



642 



TITHONUS. 



TITHONUS, 




HE woods decay, the woods decay and fall, 
The vapors weep their burthen to the ground, 
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, 
And after many a summer dies the swan. 
Me only cruel immortality 
Consumes : I wither slowly in thine arms, 
Here at the quiet limit of the world, 
A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream 
The ever silent spaces of the East, 
Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn. 

Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man — 
glorious in his beauty and thy choice, 
m^^-Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem'd 
#fiC$i^ To his great heart none other than a God! 
^ f^- I ask'd thee " Give me immortality." 

Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile. 
Like wealthy men who care not how they give. 
But thy strong Hours indignant work'd their wills. 
And beat me down and marred and wasted me, 
And tho' they could not end me, left me maim'd 
To dwell in presence of immortal youth, 
Immortal age beside immortal youth, 
And all I was, in ashes. Can thy love. 
Thy beauty make amends, tho' even now. 
Close over us, the silver star, thy guide, 
Shine in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears 
To hear me? Let me go: take back thy gift: 
Why should a man desire in any vyay 
To vary from the kindly race of men, 
Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance 

Where all should pause, as is most meet for all? 



A soft air fans the cloud apart: there comes 
A glimpse of that dark world where I was born. 
Once more the old mysterious glim.mer steals 
From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure, 



TITHONUS. 643 

And bosom beating ^vith a heart renew'd. 
Thy cheek begins to redden thro' the gloom, 
Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine, 
Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team 
Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise. 
And shake the darkness from their loosen'd manes, 
And beat the twilight into flakes of fire. 

Lo! ever thus thou growest beautiful 
In silence, then before thine answer given 
Departest, and thy tears are on my cheek. 

Wh\' wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears, 
And make me tremble lest a saying learnt 
In davs far-off, on that dark earth, be true? 
" The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts." 

Ay me! ay me I with what another heart 
In days far-off, and with what other eyes 
I used to watch — if I be he that watch'd — 
The lucid outline forming round thee; saw 
The dim curls kindle into sunny rings; 
Chang'd with thy mystic change, and felt my blood 
Glow with the glow that slowly crimson'd all 
Thy presence and thy portals, while I lay, 
Mouth, forehead, eyelids, growing dewy- warm 
With kisses balmier than half-opening buds 
Of April, and could hear the lips that kiss'd 
Whispering I knew not what of wild and sweet, 
Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing, 
While Ilion like a mist rose into towers. 

Yet hold me not forever in thine East; 
How can my nature longej' mix with thine? 
Coldly thy rosy shadow^s bathe me, cold 
Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet 
Upon thv glimmering thresholds, when the steam 
Floats up from those dim fields about the homes 
Of happy men that have the power to die. 
And grassy barro^vs of the happier dead. 
Release me, and restore me to the ground; 
Thou seest all things, thou wilt see my grave: 
Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn; 



644 



THE VOTAGE, 



I earth in earth forget these empty courts, 
And thee returning on thy silver wheels. 



•->$=;<^^:ig-^=:$< 




THE VOTAGB, 



E left behind the painted buoy 

That tosses at the harbor-mouth: 
And madly danced our hearts with joy, 

As fast we fleeted to the South : 
How fresh was every sight and sound 

On open main or winding shore! 
We knew the merry world was round, 

And we might Sail forevermore. 

Warm broke the breeze against the brow, 

Dry sang the tackle, sang the sail: 
The Lady's-head upon the prow 

Caught the shrill salt, and sheer'd the gale. 
The broad seas swell'd to meet the keel. 

And swept behind: so quick the run, 
W^e felt the good ship shake and reel, 

We seem'd to sail into the Sun! 



How oft we saw the Sun retire, 

And burn the threshold of the night. 
Fall from his ocean-lane of fire, 

And sleep beneath his pillar'd light! 
How oft the purple-skirted robe 

Of twilight slowly downward drawn, 
As thro' the slumber of the globe 

Asrain we dash'd into the dawn! 



New stars all night above the brim 
Of waters lighten'd into view; 

They climb'd as quickly, for the rim 
Changed every moment as we flew. 

Far ran the naked moon across 

The houseless ocean's heaving field, 



THE VOTAGE. 



645 



Or flying shone, the silver boss 
Of her own halo's dusky shield; 

The peaky islet shifted shaj^es, 

High towns on hills were dimly seen. 
We past long lines of Northern capes 




And dewy Northern meadows green. 
AVe came to warmer waves, and deep 

Across the boundless East we drove. 
Where those long swells of breaker sweep 

The nutmeg rocks and isles of clove. 

Bv peaks that flam'd, or, all in shade, 

Gloom'd the low coast and qui\'ering brine 
With ashy rains, that spreading made 

Fantastic plume or sable pine; 
By sands and streaining flats, and floods 

Of mighty mouth, we scudded fast, 
And hills and scarlet-mingled woods 

Glow'd for a moment as we past. 

O hundred shores of happv climes. 

How s^viftly stream'd ye by the bark! 
At times the whole sea burn'd, at times 

With wakes of fire we tore the dark; 
At times the carven craft would shoot 

From havens hid in fairy bowers. 
With naked limbs and flowers and fruit. 

But we nor paused for fruits nor flowers. 



For one fair Vision ever fled 

Down the waste waters day and night. 



646 THE VOTAGE. 



And still we follow' d where she led 
In hope to gain upon her flight. 

Her face was evermore unseen, 
And fixt upon the far sea-line ; 

But each man murmured, " O my Queen, 
I follow till I make thee mine." 

And now we lost her, now she gleam \ I 

Like Fancy made of golden air, 
Now nearer to the prow she seem'd 

Like V^irtue firm, like Knowledge fair. 
Now high on waves that idly burst 

Like Heavenly Hope she crown'd the sea, 
And now, the bloodless point revers'd. 

She bore the blade of Liberty. 

And only one among us — him 

We pleas'd not — he was seldom pleas'd : 
He saw not far: his eyes were dim : 

But ours he swore was all diseased, 
" A ship of fools," he shriek'd in spite, 

" A ship of fools," he sneer'd and w^ept. 
And overboard one stormy night 

He cast his body, and on we swept. 

And never sail of ours was furl'd 

Nor anchor dropt at eve or morn; 
We loved the glories of the \vorid, 

But laws of nature were our scorn; 
For blasts \vould rise and rave and cease, 

But whence were those that drove the sail 
Across the whirlwind's heart of peace. 

And to and thro' the counter-g-ale? 



Again to colder climes we came. 

For still we follow'd where she led: 
Now mate is blind and captain lame. 

And half the crew are sick or dead. 
But blind or lame or sick or sound, 

We follow'd that which flies before; 
We know the merry world is round, 

And we may sail forevermore. 



LUCRETIUS. 



647 



LUCRETIUS. 





UCILTA, wedded to Lucretius, found 
B\> Her master cold; for when the morning flush 
^7 Of passion and the first emV)race had died 
%^'i Between them, tho' he loved her none the less^ 
^^)^^ Yet often when the women heard his foot 
^)}>^ 'vV't'^/.^^^Re turning from pacings in the field, and ran 
To greet him with a kiss, the master took 
Small notice, or austerely, for — his mind 
Half-buried in some weightier argument. 
Or fancy-borne perhaps upon the rise 
W And long roll of the Hexameter- — he past 

To turn and ponder those three hundred scrolls 

Left b}^ the Teacher whom he held divine. 

She brooked it not; but wrathful, petulant, 

Dreaming some rival, sought and found a witch 

Who brewVl the philtre which had power, they said, 

To lead an errant passion home again. 

And this, at times, she mingled with his drink, 

And this destroyed him ; for the wicked broth 

Confus'd the chemic labor of the blood. 

And tickling the brute brain within the man's. 

Made havoc among those tender cells, and check'd 

His power to shape : he loath'd himself; and once 

After a tempest woke upon a morn 

That mock'd him with returning calm, and cried : 



" Storm in the night! for thrice I heard the rain 
Rushing; and once the flash of a thunderbolt — 
Methought I never saw so fierce a fork — 
Struck out the streaming mountain-side, and show'd 
A riotous confluence of watercourses 
Blanching and billowing in a hollow of it, 
Where all but yester-eve was dusty-dry. 



" Storm, and what dreams, ye holy Gods, what dreams! 
For thrice I waken'd after dreams. Perchance 
We do but recollect the dreams that come 



648 LUCRETIUS. 



Just ere the waking: terrible! for it seem'd 

A void was made in Nature; all her bonds 

Crack'd; and I saw the flaring atom-streams 

And torrents of her myriad universe, 

Ruinins: alons- the illimitable inane. 

Fly on to clash together again, and make 

Another and another frame of things 

Forever: that was mine, my dream, I knewit — 

Of and belonging to me, as the dog 

"With inward yelp and restless forefoot plies 

His function of the woodland; but the next! 

I thought that all the blood by Sylla shed 

Came driving rainlike down again on earth. 

And where it dash'd the reddening meadow, sprang 

No dragon warriors from Cadmean teeth, 

For these I thought my dream would show to me, 

But girls, Hetairai, curious in their art. 

Hired animalisms, vile as those that made 

The mulberry-faced Dictator's orgies worse 

Than aught they fable of the quiet Gods. 

And hands they mixt, and yeil'd and round me drove 

In narrowing circles till I yeil'd again, 

Half-sufFocated, and sprang up, and saw — 

Was it the first beam of my latest day? 

" Then, then, from utter gloom stood out the breasts, 
The breasts of Helen, and hoveringly a sword 
Now over and now under, now direct. 
Pointed itself to pierce, but sank down shamed 
At all that beauty; and as I stared, a fire. 
The fire that left a roofless Ilion, 
Shot out of them, and scorch'd me that I woke. 

" Is this thy vengeance, holy Venus, thine. 
Because I would not one of thine own doves, 
Not ev'n a rose, were ofler'd to thee? thine. 
Forgetful how my rich procemion makes 
Thy glory fly along the Italian field. 
In lays that will outlast thy Deity? 

" Deity ? nay, thy worshippers. My tongue 
Trips, or I speak profanely. Which of these 
Angers thee most, or angers thee at all? 
Not if thou be'st of those who, far aloof 



LUCRETIUS. 



649 



From envy, hate and pity, and spite and scorn, 
Live the great life w^hich all our greatest fain 
Would follow, centr'd in eternal calm. 

" Nay, if thou canst, O Goddess, like ourselves 
Touch, and be touch'd, then would I cry to thee 
To kiss thy Mavors, roll thy tender arms 
Round him, and keep him from the lust of blood 
That makes a steaming slaughter-house of Rome. 

" Ay, but I meant not thee ; I meant not her, 
Whom all the pines of Ida shook to see 
Slide from that quiet heaven of hers, and tempt 
The Trojan, while his neat-herds were abroad; 
Nor her that o'er her wounded hunter wept ' 
Her Deity false in human-amorous tears: 
Nor whom her beardless apple-arbiter 
Decided fairest. Rather, O ye Gods, 
Poet-like, as the great Sicilian call'd 
Calliope to grace his golden verse — 
Ay, and this K3'pris also — did I take 
That popular name of thine to shadow forth 
The all-generating powers and genial heat 
Of Nature, when she strikes thro' the thick blood 
Of cattle, and light is large, and lambs are glad 
Nosing the mother's udder, and the bird 




Makes his heart voice amid the blaze of flowers: 
Which things appear the work of mighty Gods. 



650 LUCRETIUS. 



" The Gods! and if I go 7?iy work is left 
Unfinish'd — if I go. The Gods, who haunt 
The lucid interspace of world and world, 
Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a wind, 
Nor ever falls the least white star of snow. 
Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans. 
Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar 
Their sacred everlasting calm! and such. 
Not all so fine, nor so divine a calm. 
Not such, nor all unlike it, man mav gain 
Letting his own life go. The Gods, the Gods! 
If all be atoms, how then should the Gods 
Being atomic not be dissoluble. 
Not follow the great law? My master held 
That Gods there are, for all men so believe. 
I prest my footsteps into his, and meant 
Surely to lead my Memmius in a train 
Of flowery clauses onward to the proof 
That Gods there are, and deathless. Meant? I meant? 
I have forgotten what I meant: my mind 
Stumbles, and all my faculties are lamed. 

"Look where another of our Gods, the Sun, 
Apollo, Delius, or of older use 
All-seeing Hyperion — what you will — 
Has mounted yonder: since he never sware, 
Except his wrath were wreak'd on wretched man, 
That he would only shine among the dead 
Hereafter; tales! for never yet on earth 
Could dead flesh creep, or bits of roasting ox 
Moan round the spit — nor knows he what he sees; 
King of the East altho' he seem, and girt 
With song and flame and fragrance, slowly lifts 
His golden feet on those empurpled stairs 
That climb into the windy halls of heaven: 
And here he glances on an e\e new-born. 
And gets for greeting but a wail of pain; 
And here he stays upon a freezing orb 
That fain would gaze upon him to the last; 
And here upon a yellow eyelid falTn 
And closed by those who mourn a friend in vain; 
Not thankful that his troubles are no more. 
And me, altho' his fire is on my face 
Binding, he sees not, nor at all can tell 
Whether I mean this day to end myself, 



LUCRETIUS. 651 



Or lend an ear to Plato where he says, 

That men like soldiers may not quit the post 

Allotted by the Gods: but he that holds 

The Gods are careless, wherefore need he care 

Greatly for them, nor rather plunge at once. 

Being troubled, wholly out of sight, and sink 

Past earthquake — ay, and gout and stone, that break 

Body toward death, and palsy, death-in-life, 

And wretched age — and worst disease of all, 

These prodigies of myriad nakedness. 

And twisted shapes of lust, unspeakable, 

Abominable, strangers at my hearth 

Not welcome, harpies miring every dish. 

The phantom husks of something foully done. 

And fleeting thro' the boundless universe, 

And blasting the long quiet of my breast 

With animal heat and dire insanity? 

" How should the mind, except it loved them, clasp 
These idols to herself ? or do they fly 
Now thinner, and now thicker, like the flakes 
In a fall of snow, and so press in, perforce 
Of multitude, as crowds that in an hour 
Of civic tumult jam the doors, arid bear 
The keepers down, and throng, their rags and they, 
The basest, far Into that council-hall 
Where sit the best and stateliest of the land? 

" Can I not fling this horror off me again. 
Seeing with how great ease Nature can smile, 
Balmier and nobler from her bath of storm. 
At random ravage? and how easily 
Tlic mountain there has cast his cloudy slough. 
Now towering o'er him in serenest air, 
A mountain o'er a mountain, — ay, and within 
All hollow as the hopes and fears of men. 

" But who was he that in the garden snared 
Picus and Faunus, rustic Gods? a tale 
To laugh at — more to laugh at in myself — 
For look! what is it? there? yon arbutus 
Totters; a noiseless riot underneath 
Strikes through the wood, sets all the tops quivering- 
The mountain quickens into Nymph and Faun ; 



652 LUCRETIUS. 



And here an Oread — how the sun delights 

To glance and shift about her slippery sides, 

And rosy knees and supple roundedness, 

And budded bosom-peaks — who this way runs 

Before the rest — A satyr, a satyr, see. 

Follows; but him I proved impossible; 

Tw3'-natured is no nature: yet he draws 

Nearer and nearer, and I scan him now 

Beastlier than any phantom of his kind 

That ever butted his rough brother-brute 

For lust or lusty blood or provender; 

I hate, abhor, spit, sicken at him; and she 

Loiithes him as well; such a precipitate heel. 

Fledged as it were with Mercury's ankle-wing. 

Whirls her to me: but will she fling herself. 

Shameless upon me? Catch her, goatfoot: nay, 

Hide, hide them, million-myrtled wilderness, 

And cavern-shadowing laurels, hide! do I wish — 

What? — that the bush were leafless? or to whelm 

All of them in one massacre? O ye Gods, 

I know you careless, yet, behold, to you 

From childly wont and ancient use I call — 

I thought I lived securely as yourselves — 

No lewdness, narrowing-envy, monkey-spite. 

No madness of ambition, avarice, none: 

No larger feast than under plane or pine 

With neighbors laid along the grass, to take 

Only such cups as left us friendly warm. 

Affirming each his own philosophy — 

Nothing to mar the sober majesties 

Of settled, sweet. Epicurean life. 

But now it seems some unseen monster lays 

His vast and filthy hands upon my will. 

Wrenching it backward into his: and spoils 

My bliss in being; and it was not great: 

For save when shutting reasons up in rhythm. 

Or Heliconian honey in living words, 

To make a truth less harsh, I often grew 

Tired of so much within our little life, 

Or of so little in our little life — 

Poor little life that toddles half an hour 

Crown'd with a flower or two, and there an end — 

And since the nobler pleasure seems to fade. 

Why should I, beastlike as I find myself. 

Not manlike end myself ? — our privilege — 



LUCRETIUS. 653 



What beast has heart to do it? And what man, 

What Roman would be dragg'd in triumph thus? 

Not I; not he, who bears one name with her 

Whose death-blow struck the dateless doom of kings. 

When, brooking not the Tarquin in her veins. 

She made her blood in sight of Collatine 

And all his peers, flushing the guiltless air. 

Spout from the maiden fountain in her heart. 

And from it sprang the Commonwealth, \vhich breaks 

As I am breaking now^ ! 

" And therefore now 
Let her, that is the womb and tomb of all, 
Great Nature, take, and forcing far apart 
Those blind beginnings that have made me man. 
Dash them anew together at her will 
Thro' all her cycles — into man once more. 
Or beast or bird or fish, or opulent flower: 
But till this cosmic order everywhe«i*e 
Shatter'd into one earthquake in one day 
Cracks all to pieces, — and that hour perhaps 
Is not so far when momentary man 
Shall seem no more a something to liimself. 
But he, his hopes and hates, his homes and fanes, 
And even his bones lon.g laid within the grave. 
The ver}' sides of the grave itself shall pass, 
Vanishing, atom and void, atom and void. 
Into the unseen forever, — till that hour. 
My golden work in which I told a truth 
That stays the rolling Ixionian wheel. 
And numbs the Fury's ringlet-snake, and plucks 
The mortal soul from out immortal hell. 
Shall stand: ay, surely; then it fails at last 
And perishes as I must; for O Thou, 
Passionless bride, divine Tranquillity, 
Yearn'd after by the wisest of the wise. 
Who fail'd to find thee, being as thou art 
Without one pleasure and without one pain, 
Howbeit I know thou surely must be mine 
Or soon or late, yet out of season, thus 
I woo thee roughly, for thou carest not 
How roughly men may woo thee so they win — 
Thus — thus: the soul flies out and dies in the air." 



654 THE HIGHER PANTHEISM. 

With that he drove the knife into his side: 
She heard him raging, heard liim fall; ran in, 
Beat breast, tore hair, cried out upon herself 
As having fail'd in duty to him, shriek'd 
That she but meant to win him back, fell on him, 
Clasp'd, kiss'd him, wail'd: he answxr'd, " Care not thou! 
Thy duty? What is duty? Fare thee well! " 




THE HIGHER PANTHEISM. 



HE sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains^— 
Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns? 



Is not the Vision Her tho' He be not that which he seems? 
Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams? 

Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and limb. 
Are they not sign and symbol of thy division from Him? 

Dark is the world to thee: thyself art the reason why? 

For is He not all but thou, that hast power to feel " I am I? " 

Glory about thee, \vithout thee ; and thou fulfillest thy doom 
Making Him broken gleams, and a stifled splendor and gloom. 

Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet- 
Closer is He tlian breathing, and nearer than hands and feet. 

God is law, say the v/ise ; O Soul, and let us rejoice. 
For if He thunder by law the thunder is yet His voice. 

Law is God, say some: no God at all, says the fool; 

For all we have power to see is a straight staflf bent in a pool; 

And the ear of man cannot hear and the eye of man cannot see; 
But if we could see and hear, this Vision — were it not He? 



THE NEW TIM ON AND THE POETS. 



655 




THE NE W TIM ON AND THE POETS. .^ 



E know him, out of Shakespeare's art, 

And those fine curses which he spoke; 
The old Timon, with his noble heart. 
That, stronoly loathing, greatly broke. 

So died the Old: here comes the New. 
Regard him ; a familiar face : 
I thought we knew him: What, it's you 
The padded man — that wears the stays — 



Who killed the girls and thrilled the boys 
With dandy pathos when you wrote! 

A Lion, you, that made a noise. 
And shook a mane eit papillotes. 

And once you tried the Muses too; 

You failed. Sir; therefore now you turn, 
To fall on those who are to you 

As Captain is to Subaltern. 

But men of long-enduring hopes. 

And careless what this hour maj^ bring, 

Can pardon little would-be Popes 

And Brummels, when they ivy to sting. 

An Artist, Sir, should rest in Art, 
And waive a little of his claim; 

To have the deep poetic heart 
Is more than all poetic fame. 

But you. Sir, you are hard to please; 

You never look but half content; 
Nor like a gentleman at ease. 

With moral breadth of temperament. 



Published in Pjuic/i, P'ebi-uary, 1846, signed " Alcibiades. 



656 



THE SKIPPING-ROPE. 



And what with spites and what with fears, 

You cannot let a body be: 
It's always ringing in your ears, 

" They call this man as good as rneT 

What profits now to understand 
The merits of a spotless shirt — 

A dapper boot — a little hand — 
If half the little soul is dirt? 

you talk of tinsel ! why we see 

The old mark of rouge upon your cheeks. 
Tou prate of Nature! you are he 

That spilt his life about the cliques. 

A TiMON you! Nay, nay, for shame: 

It looks too arrogant a jest — 
The fierce old man — to take his name. 

You bandbox. Off, and let him rest. 



THE SKIPPING-ROPE, 




^URE never yet was Antelope 
Could skip so lightly by. 
Stand off, or else my skipping-rope 

Will hit you in the eye. 
How lightly whirls the skipping-rope! 
How fairy-like you fly! 
Go, get you gone, you muse and mope — 

I hate that silly sigh. 
Nay, dearest, teach me how to hope, 

Or tell me how to die. 
There, take it, take my skipping-rope. 
And hang yourself thereby. 



ON A MOURNER. 



657 



ON A MOURNER. 




ATURE, so far as in her lies, 
Imitates God, and turns her face 

'To every land beneath the skies. 

Counts nothing that she meets with base. 
But lives and loves in every place ; 



Fills out the homely quick-set screens, 
And makes the purple lilac ripe, 
Steps from her airy hill, and greens 

The sw^amp, where hums the dropping snipe, 
With moss and braided marish-pipe: 



And on thy heart a finger lays. 

Saying, "Beat quicker, for the time 

Is pleasant, and the woods and ways 
Are pleasant, and the beech and lime 
Put forth and feel a gladder clime." 



And murmurs of a deeper voice. 
Going before to some far shrine. 

Teach that sick heart the Stronger choice. 
Till all thy life one way incline 
With one wide will that closes thine. 

And when the zoning eve has died 

Where yon dark valleys wind forlorn. 

Come Hope and Memory, spouse and bride^ 
From out the borders of the morn. 
With that fair child betwixt them born. 

And when no mortal motion jars 

The blackness round the tombing sod. 

Thro' silence and the trembling stars 

Comes Faith from tracts no feet have trod. 
And Virtue, like a household god. 



42 



658 



THE FLOWER. 



Promising empire; such as those 

Tliat once at dead of night did greet 

Troy's wandering prince, so that he rose 
With sacrifice, while all the fleet 
Had rest by stony hills of Crete. 



'*-f>::.W^^^^^ 



THE FLOWER. 



Ss^ 




^^ NCE in a golden hour 
I cast to earth a seed. 
Up there came a flower, 
The people said, a weed. 



To and fro they went 

Thro' my garden-bower. 

And muttering discontent 
Curs'd me and my flower. 



Then it grew so tali 

It wore a crown of light. 

But thieves from o'er the wall 
Stole the seed by night. 

Sow'd it far and wide 

By every town and tower. 

Till all the people cried, 
" Splendid is the flower." 

Read my little fable: 
He that runs may read. 

Most can raise the flowers now, 
For all have eot the seed. 



And some are pretty enough, 
And some are poor indeed; 

And now again the people 
Call it but a weed. 



THE CAPTAIN. 



659 



THE CAPTAIN. 



A LEGEND OF THE NAVY, 




^ ^^1^5fe^^ (^6^ 



that only rules by terror 
Death grievous v^rong. 
Deep as Hell I count his error. 
Let him hear my song, 
rave the Captain was: the seamen 
Made a gallant crew, 




^dW^ "" ^ Gallant sons of English freemen, 

^SM^^'^ Sailors bold and true. 

\^ But they hated his oppression, 
^^^^^^S,^^ Stern he was and rash; 
^4/^ ^^ ^'^'^ every light transgression 

Doom'd them to the lash. 
Day by day more harsh and cruel 

Seem'd the Captain's mood. 
Secret wrath, like smother'd fuel 

Burnt in each man's blood. 
Yet he hoped to purchase glory, 

Hoped to make the name 
Of his vessel great in story, 

Whereso'er he canie. 
So they past by capes and islands, 

Many a harbor-mouth, 
Sailing under palmy highlands 

Far within the South. 
On a day when they w^ere going 

O'er the lone expanse. 
In the North, her canvas flowing. 

Rose a ship of France. 
Then the Captain's color heighten'd. 

Joyful came his speech: 
But a cloudy gladness lighten'd 

In the eyes of each. 
"Chase," he said: the ship flew forward. 

And the wind did blow: 



660 



THE CAPTAIN. 



Stately, lightly, went she Norward, 

Till she near'd the foe. 
Then they look'd at him they hated. 

Had what they desired : 
Mute with folded arms they waited— 

Not a gun was fired. 
But they heard the foeman's thunder 

Roaring out their doom ; 
All the air was torn in sunder, 




Crashing went the boom. 
Spars were splinter'd, decks were shatter' d, 

Bullets fell like rain; 
Over mast and deck were scatter'd 

Blood and brains of men. 
Spars were splinter'd : decks were broken : 

Every mother's son — 
Down they dropt — no word was spoken — 

Each beside his gun. 
On the decks as they were lying. 



THE RINGLET. ^61 



Were their iaces grim. 
In their blood, as they lay dying, 

Did they smile on him. 
Those, in whom he had reliance 

For his noble name, 
With one smile of still defiance 

Sold him unto shame. 
Shame and wrath his heart confounded, 

Pale he turn'd and red. 
Till himself was deadly wounded 

Falling on the dead. 
Dismal error! Fearful slaughter! 

Years have wander'd by, 
Side by side beneath the water 

Crew and Captain lie; 
There the sunlit ocean tosses 

O'er them mouldering. 
And the lonely seabird crosses 

With one waft of the wing. 



•-»$:a^^^^S:$^« 



THE RINGLET, 

OUR ringlets, your ringlets. 

That look so golden-gay, 
If you will give me one, but one. 

To kiss it night and day, 
Then never chilling touch of Time 
Will turn it silver-gray ; 
And then shall I know it is all true gold 
To flame and sparkle and stream as of old, 
Till all the comets in heaven are cold, 

And all her stars decay." 
" Then take it, love, and put it by; 
This cannot change, nor yet can I." 

" My ringlet, my ringlet, 

That art so golden-gay, 
Now never chilling touch of Time 

Can turn thee silver-gray; 




662 THE RINGLET. 



And a lad may wink, and a girl may hint, 

And a fool may say his say; 
For my doubts and fears were all amiss, 
And I swear henceforth by this and this, 
That a doubt will only come for a kiss. 

And a fear to be kiss'd away." 
*' Then kiss it, love, and put it by: 
If this can change, why so can I." 



II. 



Ringlet, O Ringlet, 

I kiss'd you night and day, 
And Ringlet, O Ringlet, 

You still are golden gay, 
But Ringlet, O Ringlet, 

You should be silver-gray : 
For what is this which nov/ I'm told, 

1 that took you for true gold. 

She that gave you 's bought and sold. 
Sold, sold. 

O Ringlet, O Ringlet, 

She blush'd a rosy red. 
When Ringlet, O Ringlet, 

She dipt you from her head. 
And Ringlet, O Ringlet, 

She gave you me and said, 
"Come, kiss it, love, and put it by: 
If this can change, why so can I." 
O fie, you golden nothing, fie, 

You golden lie. 

O Ringlet, O Ringlet, 

I count you much to blame. 

For Ringlet, O Ringlet, 

You put me much to shame, 

So Ringlet, O Ringlet, 
I doom you to the flame. 

For what is this which now I learn. 

Has given all my faith a turn? 

Burn, you glossy heretic, burn, 

Burn, burn. 



THE ISLET. 



663 



THE ISLET. 



HITHER, O whither, love, shall we go, 

^ ,n,=.=^>^ For a score of sweet little summers or so? " 

^^^S^';^ * The sweet little wife of the singer said, 

.''On the day that follow'd the day she was wed 
"^ " Whither, O whither, love, shall we go?" 
And the singer shaking his curly head 
Turn'd as he sat, and struck the keys 
There at his right with a sudden crash. 
Singing, " And shall it be over the seas 
With a crew that is neither rude nor rash 
But a bevy of Eroses apple-cheek'd. 
In a shallop of crystal ivory-beak'd. 
With a satin sail of a ruby glow. 
To a sweet little Eden en earth that I know, 




A mountain islet pointed and peak'd; 
Waves on a diamond shingle dash. 
Cataract brooks to the ocean run, 
Fairily-delicate palaces shine 
Mixt with myrtle and clad with vine. 



'664 WAGES. 



And overstream'd and silvery- streak'd 
With many a rivulet high against the sun 
The facets of the glorious mountain flash 
Above the valleys of palm and pine." 

« Thither, O thither, love, let us go." 

" No, no, no! 

For in all that exquisite isle, my dear. 
There is but one bird vv^ith a musical throat, 
And his compass is but of a single note, 
That it makes one weary to hear." 

" Mock me not! mock me not! love, let us go." 

" No, love, no. 

For the bud ever breaks into bloom on the tree. 
And a storm never wakes on the lonely sea. 
And a worm is there in the lonely wood, 
That pierces the liver and blackens the blood, 
And makes it a sorrow to be." 




••^$:i5^^:^^C^^' 



WAGES. 



LORY of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song. 

Paid with a voice flying to be lost on an endless sea — 
^ Glory of Virtue, to fight, to struggle, to right the wrong — 
Nay, but she aim'd not at glory, no lover of glory she: 
Give her the glory of going on, and still to be. 



The wages of sin is death: if the wages of Virtue be dust, 

"Would she have heart to endure for the life of the worm and 
the fly ? 

She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just. 
To rest in a golden grove, or to bask in a summer sky: 

Give her the wages of going on, and not to die. 



THE VICTIM. 



665 



THE VICTIM. 




PLAGUE upon the people fell, 
A famine after laid them low, 
Then thorpe and byre arose in fire, 

For on them brake the sudden foe; 
So thick they died the people cried, 

" The Gods are moved against the land." 
The Priest in liorror about his altar 
To Thor and Odin lifted a hand: 
" Help us from famine 
And plague and strife! 
What would you have of us? 
Human life? 
Were it our nearest. 
Were it our dearest, 
(Answer, O answer) 

We give you his life." 



But still the foeman spoil'd and burn'd. 

And cattle died, and deer in wood. 
And l)ird in air, and fishes turn'd 

And whiten'd all the rolling flood; 
A .d dead men lay all over the way. 

Or down in a furrow scathed with flame: 
An. J ever and aye the Priesthood moan'd 
Till at last it seem'd that an answer came: 
" The King is happy 
In child and wife; 
Take you his dearest. 
Give us a life." 



The Priest went out by heath and hill; 

The King was hunting in the wild; 
They found the mother sitting still; 

She cast her arms about the child. 
The child was only eight summers old. 

His beauty still with his years increased. 



666 THE VICTIM. 



His face was ruddy, his hair was gold, 
He seem'd a victim due to the priest. 
The Priest beheld him. 
And cried with joy, 
"The Gods have answer' d: 
We give them the boy." 

The King returned from out the wild. 

He bore but little game in hand; 
The mother said : " They have taken the child 

To spill his blood and heal the land: 
The land is sick, the people diseased. 

And blight and famine on all the lea: 
The holy Gods, they must be appeased, 
So I pray you tell the truth to me. 
They have taken our son, 
They will have his life. 
Is he your dearest? 
Or I, the wife?" 

The King bent low, with hand on brow, 

He stay'd his arms upon his knee: 
" O wife, what use to answer now? 

For now the Priest has judged for me." 
Tlie King was shaken with holy fear; 

" The Gods," he said, " would have chosen well; 
Yet both are near, and both are dear. 
And which the dearest I cannot tell ! " 
But the priest was happy. 
His victim won: 
" We have his dearest. 
His only son! " 

The rites prepared, the victim bared. 

The knife uprising toward the blow, 
To the altar-stone she sprang alone, 

" Me, not my darling, no! " 
He caught her away with a sudden cry: • 

Suddenly from him brake his wife. 
And shrieking, "/am his dearest, I — 
/am his dearest!" rush'd on the knife. 
And the priest was happy, 
" O Father Odin, 
We give you a life. 



THE SAILOR-BOr. 



667 



Which was his nearest? 
Who. was his dearest? 
The Gods have answer'd; 
We give them the wife!" 



■•^$:3<^^^5S^:=$<-« 




THE SAILOR-BOr. 



ose at dawn and, fired with hope, 
Shot o'er the seething harbor-bar. 
And reach'd the ship and caught the 
And whistled to the morning star. 



•ope. 



S^^ And while he whistled long and loud 
He heard a fierce mermaiden cry, 
" O Boj, tho' thou art young and proud, 
I see the place where thou wilt lie. 

" The sands and yeasty surges mix 

In caves about the dreary bay, 
And on thy ribs the limpet sticks. 

And in th3^ heart the scrawl shall play." 

" Fool," he answer'd, "death is sure 
To those that stay and those that roam, 

But I will never more endure 

To sit with empty hands at home. 

" My mother clings about my neck. 
My sisters crying, ' Stay, for shame;' 

My father raves of death and wreck. 

They are all to blame, they are all to blame. 



" God help me! save I take my part 
Of danger on the roaring sea, 

A devil rises in my heart. 

Far worse than any death to me." 



668 



AFTER- THO UGH T. 



AFTER-THOUGHT, * 




[H God! the petty fools of rhyme 
I. That shriek and sweat in pigmy wars 
Before the stormy face of Time, 

And look'd at by the silent stars; — 



Who hate each other for a song, 
And do their little best to bite 

And pinch their brethren in the throng. 
And scratch the ver}^ dead for spite;— 



And strain to make an inch of room 
For their sweet selves, and cannot bear 

The sullen Lethe rolling doom 

On them and theirs and all thing-s here: — 



When one small touch of Charity 

Could lift them nearer God-lik^ stale 

Than if the crowded Orb should cry 
Like those who cried Diana great. 

And I too, talk, and lose the touch 

I talk of. Surely, after all 
The noblest answer unto such 

Is kindly stillness when they bawl. 




* From Punch, March 7, 1846, signed " Alcibiades. 



THE OPENING OF THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION. 669 



ODE SUNG AT THE OPENING OF THE INTERNATIONAL 

EXHIBITION. 



;&>PLIFT a thousand voices full and sweet, 

In this wide hall with earth's invention stored, 
And praise th' invisible universal Lord, 
Who lets once more in peace the nations meet. 
Where Science, Art, and Labor have outpour'd 
Their myriad horns of plenty at our feet. 




silent fither of our Kings to be 
ourn'd in this golden hour of jubilee, 
• this^ for all, we weep our thanks to thee! 

e world-compelling plan was thine, 

d lo! the long laborious miles 

Palace: lo! the giant aisles 

h in model and design; 
Harvest-tool and husbandry, 
Looin and wheel and engin'ry 
Secrets of the sullen mine. 
Steel and gold, and corn and wine, 
Fabric rough, or fairy-fine. 
Sunny tokens of the Line, 
Polar marvels, and a feast 
Of wonder out of West and East, 
And shapes and hues of Art divine! 
All of beauty, all of use. 
That one fair planet can produce. 



Brought from under every star. 
Blown from over every main. 
And mixt, as life is mixt with pain. 

The works of peace with works of war. 



O ye, the wise w^ho think, the wise who reign. 
From growing commerce loose her latest chain, 
And let the fair white-wing'd peace-maker fly 
To happy havens under all the sky. 



670 



SOIVJVET TO WILLIAM CHARLES M ACRE AD T 



And mix the seasons and the golden hours, 
Till each man finds his own in all men's good, 
And all men work in noble brotherhood, 
Breaking their mailed fleets and armed towers, 
And ruling by obeying Nature's powers, 

And gathering all the fruits of peace and crown' d with all her 
flowers. 



>$:=^$:^^=:$<— 



SONNET. 



TO WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY.* 




A.REWELL, ]Macready, since to-night ^ve part. 
Full-handed thunders often have confest 
Thy power, well-used to move the public breast. 
We thank thee ^vith one voice, and from the heart. 
Farewell, jNIacready; since this night we part. 
Go, take thine honors home: rank with the best, 
Garrick, and statelier Kemble, and the rest 
Who made a nation purer thro' their art. 
Thine is it, that our Drama did not die, 
Nor flicker down to brainless pantomime. 
And those gilt gauds men-children swarm to see. 
rewell, ]Macready; moral, grave, sublime, 
ur Shakespeare's bland and universal eye 
Dwells pleased, thro' twice a hundred years, on thee. 




* Read by Mr. John Forster at a dinner given to Mr. Macready, March 
stag-e. 



1S51, on his retirement from the 




And crown'd with flowers.' 



STANZAS.— THE THIRD OF FEBRUART, 1852, 



671 



STAiYZAS.^ 




HAT time I wasted youthful hours, 

One of the shining winged powers, 

E^^^ Siiow'd me vast cliffs with crown of towers. 

As toward the gracious light I bow'd, 
They seem'd high palaces and proud, 
Hid now and then by sliding cloud. 



He said, " The labor is not small; 
Yet winds the pathway free to all: — 
Take care thou dost not fear to fall ! " 



^^^:i^^t^ 



THE THIRD OF FEBRUART, 1852. f 




Y lords, we heard you speak ; you told us all 
That England's honest censure went too far; 

That our free press should cease to brawl, 
Not sting the fiery Frenchman into war. 

It was an ancient privilege, my lords, 

To fling whate'er we felt, not fearing, into words. 



We love not this French God, this child of Hell, 
Wild War, who breaks the converse of the wise; 

But though we love kind Peace so well, 
We dare not, e'en by silence, sanction lies. 

It might safe be our censures to withdraw; 

And yet, my lords, not well ; there is a higher law. 
As long as w^e remain, we must speak free. 



* From The Keepsake^ 185 1. t From The Examiner, 1852, signed " Merlin. 



672 



THE THIRD OF FEBRUART. 1852. 



Though all the storm of Europe on us break; 
No little German state are we, 

But the one voice in Europe: ^ve must speak; 
That if to-night our greatness were struck dead, 

There might remain some record of the things we said. 

If you be fearful, then must we be bold. 
Our Britain cannot salve a tyrant o'er- 




Better the w^aste Atlantic roll'd 

On her and us and ours forevermore. 
What! have we fought for freedom from our prime. 
At last to dodge and palter with a public crime? 

Shall we fear him ? our own we never feared. 

From our first Charles; by force we wrung our claims, 
PrickM by the Papal spur, we rear'd, 

And flung the burden of the second James. 
I say vs^e never fear'd! and as for these. 
We broke them on the land, we drove them on the seas 



And you, my lords, you make the people muse, 
In doubt if you be of our Barons' breed — 

Were those your sires wiio fought at Lewes? 
Is this the manly strain of Runnymede? 

O fall'n nobility, that, overaw'd. 

Would lisp in honey' d whispers of this monstrous fraud. 



BRITONS, GUARD TOUR OWN. 



673 



We feel, at least, that silence here were sin. 

Not ours the fault if we have feeble hosts — 
If easy patrons of their kin 

Have left the last free race with naked coasts! 
They knew the precious things they had to guard : 
For us, Ave will not spare the tyrant one hard word. 

Though niggard throats of Manchester may bawl, 
What England was, shall her true sons forget? 

We are not cotton-spinners all. 

But some love England, and her honor yet. 

And these in our Thermopylae shall stand, 

And hold agfainst the world the honor of the land. 



9$=3j^^)^^t5^- 



BRITONS, GUARD TOUR OIVJV.^ 



ISE, Britons, rise, if manhood be not dead; 
The world's last tempest darkens overhead; 

The Pope has bless'd him; 

The Church caress'd him ; 
He triumphs; maybe we shall stand alone, 

Britons, guard your own. 

His ruthless host is bought with plundered gold, 
By lying priests the peasants' votes controll'd. 

All freedom vanish'd, 

The true men banish'd. 
He triumphs: maybe we shall stand alone, 

Britons, guard your own. 

Peace-lovers we — sweet Peace we all desire — 
Peace-lovers we — but who can trust a liar? — 

Peace-lovers, haters 

Of shameless traitors. 
We hate not France, but this man's heart of stone. 

Britons, guard your own. 




43 



*Froin The Examiner, 1852. 



674 BRITONS, GUARD TOUR OWN. 

We hate not France, but France has lost her voice, 
This man is France, the man they call her choice. 

By tricks and spying, 

By craft and lying, 
And murder was her freedom overthrov^n. 

Britons, guard your own. 

«* Vive I'Empereur " may follow by and by: 
^' God save the Queen" is here a truer cry. 

God save the Nation, 

The toleration, 
And the free speech that makes a Briton known. 

Britons, guard your own. 

Rome's dearest daughter now is captive France, 
The Jesuit laughs, and reckoning on his chance, 
Would unrelenting- 
Kill all dissenting. 
Till we were left to fight for truth alone. 
Britons, guard your own. 

Call home your ships across Biscayan tides, 
To blow the battle from their oaken sides. 

Why waste they yonder 

Their idle thunder? 
Why stay they there to guard a foreign throne? 

Seamen, guard your own. 

We were the best of marksmen long ago, 
We won old battles with our strength, the bow. 
, Now practise, yeoman. 

Like those bov^men, 
Till your balls fly as their shafts have flown 

Yeomen, guard your own. 

His soldier-ridden Highness might incline 
To take Sardinia, Belgium, or the Rhine: 

Shall we stand idle. 

Nor seek to bridle 
His rude aggressions, till we stand alone? 

Make their cause your own. 

Should he land here, and for one hour pre\'ail. 
There must no inan go back to bear the tale: 



HANDS ALL ROUND. 



675 



No man to bear it — 
Swear it! we swear it! 
Althouo^h we fio^ht the banded world alone 
We swear to guard our own. 



••^^5S6^:i^5«^t:$<- 



HANDS ALL ROUJVB.^ 




IRST drink a health, this solemn night, 
A health to England, every guest; 
That inan's the best cosmopolite 

Who loves his native country best. 
May Freedom's oak for ever live 
With stronger life from day to day; 
^^That man's the best Conservative 

Who lops the moulder'd branch away. 
Hands all round! 
the tyrant's hope confound! 
great cause of Freedom drink, my friends, 
the great name of England, round and round. 



A health to Europe's honest men! 

Heaven guard them from her tyrant's jails! 
From wrong'd Poerio's noisome den. 

From iron limbs and tortured nails! 
We curse the crimes of southern kings. 

The Russian whips and Austrian rods — 
We likewise have our evil things; 

Too much we make our Ledgers, Gods. 
Yet hands all round! 

God the tyrant's cause confound! 
To Europe's better health we drink, my friends, 

And the great name of England, round and round! 



What health to France, if France be she. 

Whom martial progress only charms? 
Yet tell her — better to be free 



•=From The Examiner, 1852, signed "Merlin.' 



676 HANDS ALL ROUND. 



Than vanquish all the world in arms. 
Her frantic city's flashing heats 

But fire, to blast, the hopes of men. 
Why change the titles of your streets? 

You fools, you'll want them all again. 
Hands all round! 

God the tyrant's cause confound! 
To France, the wiser France, we drink, my friends, 

And the great name of England, round and round. 

Gigantic daughter of the West, 

We drink to thee across the flood. 
We know thee, and we love thee best, 

P^or art thou not of British blood? 
Should war's mad blast again be blown, 

Permit not thou the tyrant powers 
To fight thy mother here alone. 

But let thy broadsides roar with ours. 
Hands all round! 

God the tyrant's cause confound! 
To our dear kinsmen of the West, my friends, 

And the great name of England, round and round. 

O rise, our strong Atlantic sons, 

When war against our freedom springs! 
O speak to Europe through your guns! 

They can be understood by kings. 
You must not mix our Queen with those 

That wish to keep their people fools; 
Our freedom's foemen are her foes. 

She comprehends the race she rules. 
Hands all round ! 

God the tyrant's cause confound ! 
To our dear kinsmen in the West, my friends, 

And the great name of England, round and round. 




THE WAR. 



677 




THE WAR.'**' 



HERE is a sound of thunder afar, 

Storm in the South that darkens the day, 
Storm of battle and thunder of war. 
Weh, if it do not roll our way. 
Forin ! form ! Riflemen form ! 
Ready, be ready to meet the storm ! 
Riflemen, riflemen, riflemen form! 



Be not deaf to the sound that warns. 

Be not gull'd by a despot's plea! 
Are figs of thistles, or grapes of thorns? 
How should a despot set inen free ? 
Form! form! Riflemen form! 
Ready, be ready to meet the storm! 
Riflemen, riflemen, riflemen form ! 



Let your Reforms for a moment go. 

Look to your butts and take good aims. 
Better a rotten borough or so. 

Than a rotten fleet or a city of flames! 
Form! form! Riflemen form! 
Ready, be ready to meet the storm ! 
Riflemen, riflemen, riflemen form! 

Form, -be ready to do or die! 

Form in Freedom's name and the Queen's! 
True, that vv^e have a faithful ally, 

But only the Devil knows what he means. 
Form! form! Riflemen form ! 
Ready, be ready to meet the storm ! 
Riflemen, riflemen, riflemen form! 



* From the London Times, May 9, 1859. 



A WELCOME TO ALEXANDRA. 



A WELCOME TO ALEXANDRA, 




March 7, 1863. 



EA-KINGS' daughter from over the sea, 

Alexandra! 

Saxoii and Norman and Dane are^we, 

But all of us Danes in our \velcome of thee, 

Alexandra ! 

Welcome her, thunders of fort and of fleet! 

Welcome her, thundering cheer of the street! 
Welcome her, all things youthful and s^veet, 
Scatter the blossom under her feet! 
Break, happy land, into earlier flowers! 
Make inusic, O bird, in the new-budded bowsers: 



Blazon your inottoes of blessin< 



prayc 



Welcome her, ^velcome her, all that is ours! 

Warble, O bugle, and trumpet, blare! 

Flags, flutter out upon turrets and towers, 

Flames, on the ^vindy headland flare! 

Utter your jubilee, steeple and spire! 

Clash, ye bells, in the merry March air! 

Flash, ye cities, in rivers of fire! 

Rush to the roof, sudden rocket, and higher 

Melt into the stars for the land's desire! 

Roll and rejoice, jubilant voice, 

Roll as a ground-swell dash'd on the strand, 



s^l 





" Break, happy land, into earlier flowers ! 
Make music, O bird, in the new-budded bowers.' 



ENGLAND AND AMERICA IN 1782. 679 

Roar as the sea when he welcomes the land, 

And welcome her, welcome the land's desire, 

The sea-kings' daughter as happy as fair, 

Blissful bride of a blissful heir, 

Bride of the heir of the kings of the sea — , 

O joy to the people, and joy to the throne. 

Come to us, love us, and make us your own: 

For Saxon or Dane or Norman we. 

Teuton or Celt, or whatever we be. 

We are each all Dane in our welcome of thee, 

Alexandra! 



3^^:;^^::^ 




ENGLAND AND AMERICA IN 1782. 



\ THOU, that sendest out the man 
To rule by land and sea. 
Strong mother of a Lion-line, 
Be proud of those strong sons of Thine 
Who wrench'd their rights from thee! 



What wonder, if in noble heat 

Those men thine arms withstood, 
Be taught the lesson thou hast taught, 
And in thy spirit with thee fought — 
Who sprang from English blood! 

But thou rejoice with liberal joy, 

Lift up thy rocky face. 
And shatter, when the storms are black, 
In many a streaming torrent back. 

The seas that shock thy base! 

Whatever harmonies of law * 

The g]-owing world assume. 
Thy work is thine — the single note 
From that deep chord which Hampden smote 

Will vibrate to the doom. 



680 



ON A SPITEFUL LETTER. 



ON A SPITEFUL LETTER.'^ 




ERE, it is here — The close of the year, 
.\nd with it a spiteful letter. 
y fame in song has done him much wrong. 
For himself has done much better. 



;^^^|H^b (g>^(/^r!,, O foolish bard, is your lot so hard, 
wS^iNS' If men neolect vour pagfes? 

I think not much of yours or of mine: 
I hear the roll of the ages. 



This fallen leaf, isn't fame as brief? 

My rhymes may have been the stroni^er. 
Yet hate me not, but abide your lot; 

I last but a moment longer. 

O faded leaf, isn't fame as brief? 

What room is here for a hater? 
Yet the yellow leaf hates the greener leaf, 

For it hancfs one moment later. 




Greater than T — isn't that your cry? 

And I shall live to see it. 
Well, if it be so, so it is, you know; 

And if it be so — so be it. 

O summer leaf, isn't life as brief ? 

But this is the time of hollies. 
And my heart, my heart is an evergreen ; 

And I hate the spites and the follies. 



*Frora Once a FPlfiryf, January 4, 1868. 



A JDEjDIQATIOJV. 



681 



A DEDICATION. 




\ EAR, near and true — no truer Time himself 
p Can prove you, tho' he make you evermore 
l^"®"^ Dearer and nearer, as the rapid of Hfe 
^^ Shoots to the fall — take this, and prav that he 
k Who v^^rote it, honoiing your sweet faith in him, 
i Ma}' trust himself; and spite of praise and scorn, 
As one who feels the immeasurable world. 
Attain the wise indifference of the wise; 
And after Autumn past — if left to pass 
His autumn into seeming-leafless days — 
Draw toward the long frost and longest night. 
Wearing his wisdom lightly, like the fruit 
Which in our winter woodland looks a flower. * 



•-s$=:^^l^«^:=$«-.. 



1865—1866.^ 




STOOD on a tower in the wet, 
And New Year and Old Year met. 
And wdnds were roaring and blowing; 

And I said, " O years that meet in tears, 

HaVe ye aught that is worth the knowino-? 

Science enough and exploring. 

Wanderers coming and going 

Matter enough for deploring, 

But aught that is worth the knowing?" 

Seas at my feet were flowing. 

Waves on the shingle pouring, 

Old Year roaring and blowing. 

And New Year blowing and roaring. 



' The fruit of the Spindle -tree {Euonymus Europotus.') t From Good Words, March 1S6S. 



682 



IN THE VALLET OF CAUTERETZ. 



IN THE VALLET OF CAUTERETZ. 




[LL along the valley, stream that flashest white, 
Deepening thy voice with the deepening of the night, 
All along the valley, where thy waters flow, 
I walk'd with one I loved two and thirty years ago. 
All along the valley while I walk'd to-day, 
The two and thirty years were a mist that rolls away; 
For all along the valley, down thy rocky bed. 
Thy living voice to me was as the voice of the dead, 
And all along the valley, by rock and cave and tree, 
The voice of the dead was as a living voice to me. 



SONG. 




ADY, let the rolling drums 

Beat to battle w^here thy warrior stands: 
Now thy face across his fancy comes, 

And ofives the battle to his hands. 



Lady, let the trumpets blow. 
Clasp thy little babes about thy knee: 
Now their warrior father meets the foe, 

And strikes him dead for thine and thee. 



SONG. 




I OME they brought him slain with spears, 
I They brought him home at even-fall: 
** .\11 alone she sits and hears 
Echoes in his empty hall. 

Sounding- on the morrow. 



The sun peep'd in from open field. 
The boy began to leap and prance, 
Rode upon his father's lance. 

Beat upon his father's shield — 

"O hush, my joy, my sorrow. 



BOADJCEA. 683 



EXPERIMENTS. 



BOADICEA. 




HILE about the shore of Mona those Neronian legion- 
aries 
Burnt and broke the grove and altar of the Druid and 

Druidess, 
Far in the East Boadicea, standing loftily charioted^ 
Mad and maddening all that heard her in her fierce 
volubility, 
Girt by half the tribes of Britain, near the colony Camulodune, 
Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters o'er a wild confederacy. 

" They that scorn the tribes and call us Britain's barbarous popu- 
laces, 

Did they hear me, would they listen, did they pity me supplicating? 

Shall I heed them in their anguish? shall I brook to be supplicated? 

Hearlcenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant! 

Must their ever-ravening eagle's beak and talons annihilate us? 
Tear the noble heart of Britain, leave it gorily quivering? 
Bark an answer, Britain's raven! bark and blacken innumerable. 
Blacken round the Roman carrion, make the carcass a skeleton. 
Kite and kestrel, wolf and wolf kin, from the wilderness, wallow in it, 
Till the face of Bel be brighten'd, Taranis be propitiated. 
Lo their colony half-defended! lo their colony, Camulodune! 
There the horde of Roman robbers mock at a barbarous adversary. 
There a hive of Roman liars worship a gluttonous emperor-idiot. 
Such is Rome, and this her deity; hear it. Spirit of Cassivelaun! 

" Hear it, Gods! the Gods have heard it, O Icenian, O Coritanilm! 
Doubt not ye the Gods have ariswer'd, Catieuchlanian, Trinobant. 
These have told us all their anger in miraculous utterances, 
Thunder, a flying fire in heaven, a murmur heard aerially. 
Phantom sound of blows descending, moan of ati enemy massacred. 
Phantom wail of women and children, multitudinous agonies. 
Bloodily flowed the Tamesa rolling phantom bodies of horses and men; 
Then a phantom colony smoulder'd on the refluent estuary; 
Lastly yonder yester-even, suddenly giddily tottering — 



^84 



BO AD ICE A. 



There w^as one who w^atch'd and told me — do^vn their statue of Victory 

fell. 
Lo their precious Roman bantling, lo the colony Camulodune, 
Shall we teach it a Roman lesson ? shall we care to be pitiful ? 
Shall "we deal with it as an infant? shall ^ve dandle it amorously? 



"Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant! 




While I roved about the forest, long and bitterly meditating, 

There I heard them in the darkness, at the mystical ceremony. 

Loosely robed in flying raiment, sang the terrible prophetesses. 

< Fear not, isle of blowing woodland, isle of silvery parapets! 

Tho' the Roman eagle shado^v thee, tho' the gathering enemv narrow 

thee. 
Thou shalt vyax and he shall dwindle, thou shalt be the mighty one yet! 
Thine the liberty, thine the glory, thine the deeds to be celebrated, 
Thine the myriad-rolling ocean, light and shado\v illimitable. 



BOADICEA. 685- 

Thine the lands of lasting" summer, many-biossoming Paradises, 
Thine the North and thine the South, and thine the battle-thunder of God.' 
So they chanted: how shall Britain light upon auguries happier? 
So they chanted in the darkness, and there cometh a victory no\v. 

" Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant! 
Me the wife of rich Prasutagus, me the lover of liberty, 
Me they seized and me they tortured, me they lash'd and humiliated. 
Me the sport of ribald Veterans, mine of ruffian violators! 
See they sit, they hide their faces, miserable in ignominy! 
Wherefore in me burns an anger, not bv blood to be satiated. 
Lo the palaces and the temple, lo the colony Camulodune! 
There they ruled, and thence they wasted all the flourishing territory, 
Thither at their will they haled the yellow-ringleted Britoness — 
Bloodily, bloodily fall the battle-axe, unexhausted, inexorable. 
Shout Icenian, Catieuchlanian, shout Coritanian, Trinobant, 
Till the victim hear within and yearn to hurry precipitously 
Like the leaf in a roaring whirlwind, like the smoke in a hurricane whirl'd, 
Lo the colony, there they rioted in the city of Cunobeline? 
There they drank in cups of emerald, there at tables of ebony lay, 
Rolling on their purple couches in their tender effeminacy. 
There they dwelt and there they rioted; there — there — they dwell no 

more. 
Burst the gates, and burn the palaces, break the works of the statuary. 
Take the hoary Roman head and shatter it, hold it abominable, 
Cut the Romaji boy to pieces in his lust and voluptuousness. 
Lash the maiden into s\vooning, me they lash'd and humiliated. 
Chop the breasts from off the mother, dash the brains of the little one out, 
Up my Britons, on my chariot, on my chargers, trample them under us." 

So the Queen Boadicea, standing loftily charioted. 
Brandishing in her hand a dart and rolling glances lioness-like. 
Yelled and shrieked between her daughters in her fierce volubility. 
Till her people all around the royal chariot agitated, 
jSIadlv dashed the darts together, writhing barbarous lineaments, 
Made the noise of frosty woodlands, when they shiver in January, 
Roar'd as when the rolling breakers boom and blanch on the precipices.. 
Yell'd as when the winds of v/inter tear an oak on a promontory. 
So the silent colony hearing her tumultuous adversaries 
Clash the darts and on the buckler beat with rapid unanimous hand, 
Thought on all her evil tyrannies, all her pitiless avarice. 
Till she felt the heart within her fall and flutter tremulousl}^. 
Then her pulses at the clamoring of her enemy fainted awa3^ 
Out of evil evil flourishes, out of tyranny tyranny buds. 



686 



IN OUANTITT. 



Ran the land with Roman slaughter, muhitudinous agonies. 
Perish'd many a maid and matron, many a valorous legionary. 
Fell the colony, city and citadel, London, Verulam, Camulodune. 



•►^$x^^^^=:$^. 



IN QUANTITY. 



ON TRANSLATIONS OF HOMER. 



Hexajneters and Pentameters. 




ifHESE lame hexameters the strong-wing'd music of Homer! 
' No — but a most burlesque barbarous experiment. 
When was a harsher sound ever heard, ye Muses of England? 

When did a frog coarser croak upon our Helicon? 
Hexameters no worse than daring Germany gave us, 
Barbarous experiment, babarrous hexameters. 



MILTON. 



Alcaics. 




I MIGHTY-MOUTH'D inventor of harmonies, 
O skill'd to smg of Time or Eternity, 
God-gifted organ-voice of England. 
Milton, a name to resound for ages; 
Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, 
Starr' d from Jehovah's gorgeous armories. 
Tower, as the deep-domed empyrean 
Rings to the roar of an angel onset — 
Me rather all that bowery loneliness, 
The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring, 
And bloom profuse and cedar arches 
Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean. 
Where some refulgent sunset of India 
Streams o'er a rich ambrosial ocean isle, 
And crimson-hued the stately palmwoods 
Whisper in odorous heights of even. 



IN QUANTITY 



687 




Hen decasyUa b ics . 

I YOU chorus of indolent reviewers, 
I Irresponsible, indolent reviewers, 

Look, I come to the test, a tiny poem 
All composed in a metre of Catullus, 
All in quantity, careful of my motion. 
Like the skater on ice that hardly bears him, 




Lest I fall unawares before the people, 

Waking: laiig-hter in indolent reviewers. 

Should I flounder awhile without a tumble 

Thro' this metrification of Catullus, 

They should speak to me not without a welcomej 

All that chorus of indolent reviewers. 

Hard, hard, hard is it, only not to tumble, 

So fantastical is the dainty metre. 

Wherefore slight me not wholly, nor believe me 

Too presumptuous, indolent reviewers. 

O blatant Magazines, regard me rather — 

Since I blush to belaud myself a moment — 

As some rare little rose, a piece of inmost 

Horticultural art, or half coquette-like 

Maiden, not to be greeted unbenignly. 



688 



TRANSLATION OF THE ILIAD IN BLANK VERSE. 



SPECIMEN OF A TRANSLATION OF THE ILIAD IN BLANK VERSE. 







f^O Hector said, and sea-like roar'd his host; 
Then loosed their sweating horses from the yoke 
And each beside his chariot bound his own; 
And oxen from the city, and goodlv sheep 
In haste they drove, and honey-hearted wine 
And bread from out the houses brought, and heap'd 
Their firewood, and the winds from off the plain 
Roll'd the ricli vapor far into the heaven. 
And these all night upon the bridge* of war 
Sat glorj^ng ; many a fire before them blazed : 




As when in heaven the stars about the moon 
Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid. 
And every height comes out, and jutting peak 
And vallev, and the immeasurable heavens 



* Or, ridge. 



TRANSLATION OF THE ILIAD IN BLANK VERSE. 



689 



Break open to their highest, and all the stars 
Shine, and the Shepherd gladdens in his heart: 
So many a fire between the ships and stream 
Of Xanthus blazed before the towers of Troy, 
A thousand on the plain; and close by each 
Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fire ; 
And champing golden grain, the horses stood 
Hard by their chariots, waiting for the dawn.-j- 

Iliad^ VIII, 542-561, 




t Or more literally, — 

And eating hoary grain and pulse the steeds 
Stood by their cars, waiting the throned morn. 



44 



t-yU 






^^'^: s:5M 









^f^ 



OR THE 



-^ 



'^y^iMti 












THE WINDOW; OR THE SONGS OF THE WRENS. 



693 



THE WINDOW; OR THE SONGS OF THE WEENS. 



Words ivritten Jor Micsic. 
The Music by Arthur Sullivan. 

Four years ago Mr. Sullivan requested me to write a little song-cycle, German fashion, 
for him to exercise his art upon. He had been very successful in setting such old songs as 
" Orpheus with his Lute," and I drest up for him, partly in the old style, a puppet whose 
almost only merit is, perhaps, that it can dance to Mr. Sullivan's instrument. I am sorry 
that my four-year-old puppet should have to dance at all in the dark shadow of these days; 
but the inusic is now completed, and I am bound by my promise. — [A. Tennyson.] 

December, 1S70. 

ON THE HILL. 




HE lights and shadows fly! 
Yonder it brightens and darkens down on the 
plain. 
A jewel, a jewel dear to a lover's eye! 
O is it the brook, or a pool ; or her window 
pane, 
When the winds are up in the morning? 



Clouds that are racing above. 
And winds and lights and shadows that cannot be 
still. 
All running on one way to the home of my love, 
^^^^ You are all running on, and I stand on the slope of 
^y^' the hill, 

And the winds are up in the morning! 

Follow, follow the chase! 
And m}^ thoughts are as quick and as quick, ever on, on, on. 

O lights, are you flying over her sweet little face? 
And my heart is there before you are come and gone, 

When the winds are up in the morning! 



694 



THE WINDOW; OR THE SONGS OF THE WRENS. 



Follow them down the slope! 
And I follow them down to the window pane of my dear, 

And it brightens and darkens and brightens like my hope, 
And it darkens and brightens and darkens like my fear. 

And the winds are up in the morning. 



AT THE WINDOW. 

Vine, vine and eglantine. 
Clasp her window, trail and twine! 
Rose, rose and clematis. 
Trail and twine and clasp and kiss 
Kiss, kiss; and make her a bovver 
All of flowers, and drop me a flower, 
Drop me a flower. 

Vine, vine and eglantine, 

Cannot a flower, a flower, be mine? 




Rose, rose and clematis. 
Drop me a flower, a flower, to kiss. 
Kiss, kiss — And out of her bower 
All of flowers, a flower, a flower, 
Dropt, a flower. 



GONE! 



Gone ! 

Gone till the end of the year, 

Gone, and the light gone with her and left me in shadow here! 



THE WINDOW; OR THE SONGS OF THE WRENS. 695 

Gone — flitted away, 
Taken the stars from the night and the sun from the day! 
Gone, and a cloud in my heart, and a storm in the air! 
Flown to the east or the west, flitted I know not where ! 
Down in the south is a flash and a groan: she is there! she is 
there ! 



IV. 



WINTER, 

The frost is here, 

And fuel is dear, 

And woods are sear. 

And fires burn clear. 

And frost is here 

And has bitten the heel of the going year. 

Bite, frost, bite ! 

You roll up away from the light 

The blue wood-louse and the plump dormouse, 

And the bees are still'd, and the flies are kill'd. 

And you bite far into the heart of the house. 

But not into mine. 

Bite, frost, bite ! 

The woods are all the searer,^ 

The fuel is all the dearer. 

The fires are all the clearer. 

My spring Is all the nearer. 

You have bitten into the heart of the earth, 

But not into mine. 



V. 



SPRING. 

Birds' love and birds' song 
Flying here and there. 

Birds' song and birds' love. 
And you with gold for hair! 

Birds' song and birds' love, 



696 



THE WINDOW; OR THE SONGS OF THE WRENS. 



Passing vi^ith the weather, 
Men's song and men's love, 
To love once and forever. 

Men's love and birds' love, 

And women's love and men's! 

And you my wren with a crown of gold, 
You my Queen of the wrens! 

You the Queen of the ^vrens — 



^!?^^'^'<V 




We'll be birds of a feather, 
I'll be King of the Queen of the wrens, 
And all in a nest tosfether. 



VI. 



THE LETTER. 



Where is another sweet as my sweet. 
Fine of the fine, and shy of the shy? 

Fine little hands, fine little feet — 
Dewy blue eye. 

Shall I write to her? shall I. go? 
Ask her to marry me by and by ? ' 

Somebody said that she'd say no; 
Somebody knows that she'll say ay! 



Ay or no, if ask'd to her face ? 

Ay or no, from shy of the shy ? 
Go, little letter, apace, apace. 

Fly! 
Fly to the light in the valley belo\\'' — 

Tell my wish to her dewy blue eye; 




"Be 



merry, all birds, to-dav, 
Be merry on earth as jou never 
were merrv before.' 



See page 6g8 



THE WINDOW; OR THE SONGS OF THE WRENS. 697 

Somebody said that she'd say no; 
Somebody knows that she'll say ay! 



VII. 



NO ANSWER. 

The mist and the rain, the mist and the rain! 

Is it ay or no ? is it ay or no ? 
And never a glimpse of her window pane! 

And I may die but the grass will grow, 
And the grass will grow when I am gone, 
And the wet west wind and the world will go on. 

Ay is the song of the wedded spheres, 

No is trouble and cloud and storm, 
Ay is life for a hundred years, 

No will push me down to the worm. 
And when I am there and dead and gone, 
The wet west wind and the world will go on. 

The wind and the wet, the wind and the wet! 

Wet west wind, how you blow, you blow! 
And never a line from my lady yet! 

Is it ay or no? is it ay or no? 
Blow, then, blow, and when I am gone. 
The wet west wind and the world may go on. 



VIII. 

NO ANSWER. 

Winds are loud and you are dumb. 
Take my love, for love will come. 

Love will come but once a life. 
Winds are loud and winds will pass! 
Spring is here with leaf and grass: 

Take my love and be my wife. 
After-loves of maids and men 
Are but dainties drest again: 
Love me now, you '11 love me then: 

Love can love but once a life. 



69S 



THE WINDOW: OR THE SONGS OF THE WRENS. 



THE ANSWER. 

Two little hands that meet, 
Claspt on her seal, my sweet! 
Must I take 3'ou and break you, 
Two little hands that meet? 
I inust take you, and break you, 
And loving hands must part — 
Take, take — break, break, break- 
Break — you may break my heart. 
Faint heart never won — 
Break, break, and all 's done. 



AY. 



Be merry, all birds, to-day, 

Be merrv on earth as you never were merry before. 










'-^'^-, 



^-^rj>/:x-\ 







Be merry in heaven, O larks, and far away. 

And merry forever and ever, and one day more, 
"" Why? 
For it's easv to find a rhyme. 



Look, look, how he flits, 

The fire-crovvn'd king of the wrens, from out of the pine 
Look how they tumble the blossom, the mad little tits! 



THE WINDOW; OR THE SONGS OF THE WRENS. 699 

"Cuck-oo! Cuck-oo!" was ever May so fine? 
Why? 
For it's easy to find a rhyme. 

O merry the linnet and dove, 

And swallow and sparrow and throstle, and have your desire! 
O merry my heart, you have gotten the wings of love. 
And flit like the king of the wrens with a crown of fire. 
Why ? 
For it's ay ay ay, ay ay. 



XI. 
WHEN? 

Sun comes, moon comes, 

Time slips away. 
Sun sets, moon sets, 

Love, fix a day. 

" A year hence, a year hence," 
" We shall both be gray." 

" A month hence, a month hence,' 
" Far, far away." 

" A week hence, a week hence," 

" Ah, the long delay." 
" Wait a little, wait a little," 

"You shall fix a day." 

" To-morrow, love, to-morrow, 
And that's an age away." 

Blaze upon her window, sun, 
And honor all the day. 

XII. 
MARRIAGE MORNING. 



Light, so low upon earth. 

You send a flash to the sun, • 
Here is the golden close of love, 



700 



THE WINDOW; OR THE SONGS OF THE WRENS. 



All my wooing is done. 
O the woods and the meadows, 

Woods where we hid from the ^vet, 
Stiles where we stay'd to be kind, 

Meadows in which we met! 
Light, so lo^v in the vale, 

You flash and lighten afar. 
For this is the golden morning of love. 

And you are his morning star. 
Flash, I am coming, I come. 

By meadow and stile and wood, 
O lighten into my e}' es and my heart. 

Into my heart and my blood! 
Heart, are you great enough 

For a love that never tires? 
O heart, are you great enough for love? 

I have heard of thorns and briers. 
Over the thorns and briers. 

Over the meadows and stiles. 
Over the world to the end of it 

Flash for a million miles. 




DESPAIR. 



701 




...,. ^ 







-rf® 



<$JA 



^iik^' 












^^3 





A DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE. 

A man and his wife having lost faith in a God, and hope of a life to come, and being 
utterly miserable in this, resolve to end themselves by drowning. The woman is drowned, 
but the man is rescued bv a minister of the sect he had abandoned. 




|S it you that preach'd in the chapel there looking over 
the sand 
Follow'd us too, that night, and dogg'd us, and drew 

me to land ? 
What did I feel that night? You are curious. How 

should I tell ? 
Does it matter so much what I felt.? You rescued me — 
yet — was it well 
That you cam.e unwish'd for, uncall'd, between me and the deep 

and my doom 
Three days since, three more dark days of the Godless gloom 
Of a life without sun, without health, without hope, without any 

delight 
In anything here upon earth? but ah God, that night, that night 
When the rolling eyes of the light-house there on the fatal neck 
Of land running out mto rock — they had saved many hundreds 
from wreck — 

Glared on our way toward death, I remember I thought as we past 
Does it matter how many they saved? we are all of us wreck'd at last — 
"Do you fear?" and there came thro' the roar of the breaker a whisper, 

a breath — 
"Fear? am I not with you? I am frightened at life, not death." 



702 DESPAIR. 

And the suns of the limitless Universe sparkled and shone in the sky, 

Flashing with fires as of God, but we knew that their light was a lie — 

Bright as with deathless hope — but, however they sparkled and shone. 

The dark little v^orlds running round them were vs^orlds of woe like our own — 

No soul in the heaven above, no soul on the earth below, 

A iiery scroll written over with lamentation and woe. 

See, we were nursed in the dark night-fold of your fatalist creed, 

And we turn'd to the growing dawn, we had hoped for a dawn indeed. 

When the light of a Sun that was coming would scatter the ghosts of the 

Past, 
And the cramping creeds that had madden'd the peoples would vanish at last, 
And we broke away from the Christ, our human brother and friend. 
For He spoke, or it seem'd that He spoke, of a Hell without help, without end' 

Hoped for a dawn and it came, but the promise had faded away , 

We had past from a cheerless night to the glare of a drearier day 

He is only a cloud and a smoke who was once a pillar of fire. 

The guess of a worm in the dust and the shadow of its desire — 

Of a worm as it writhes in a world of the weak trodden down by the strong, 

Of a d3nng worm in a world, all massacre, murder, and wrong. 

O we poor orphans of nothing — alone on that lonely shore — 
Born of the brainless Nature who knew not that which she bore: 
Trusting no longer that earthly flower would be heavenly fruit — 
Come from the brute, poor souls — no souls — and to die with the brute- 
Nay, but I am not claiming your pity: I know you of old — * 
Small pity for those that have ranged from the narrow warmth of your fold 
Where you bawl'd the dark side of your faith and a God of eternal rage. 
Till you flung us back on ourselves, and the human heart, and the Age. 

But pity — the Pagan held it a vice — was in her and in me. 

Helpless, taking the place of the pitying God that should be! 

Pity for all that aches in the grasp of an idiot power. 

And pity for our own selves on an earth that bore not a flower; 

Pity for all that suffers on land or in air or the deep, 

And pity for our own selves till we long'd for eternal sleep. 

"Lightly step over the sands! the waters — you hear them call! 
Life with its anguish, and horrors, and errors — away with it all !'' 
And she laid her hand in my own — she v^as always loyal and sweet — 
Till the points of the foam in the dusk came playing about our feet. 



DESPAIR. 703 

There was a strong sea-current would sweep us out to the main. 

" Ah God," tho' I felt as I spoke, I was taking the name in vain — 

"Ah God," and we turn'd to each other, we kiss'd, we embraced, slie and I 

Knowing the Love we were used to beheve everlasting would die: 

We had read their know-nothing books, and we lean'd to the darker side — 

Ah God, should we find Him, perhaps, perhaps, if we died, if we died; 

We never had found Him on earth, this earth is a fatherless Hell — 

" Dear Love, for ever and ever, for ever and ever farewell," 

Never a cry so desolate, not since the world began ! 

Never a kiss so sad, no, not since the coming of man. 

But the blind wave cast me ashore, and you saved me, a valueless life. 
Not a grain of gratitude mine! You have parted the man from the wife. 
I am left alone on the land, she is all alone in the sea. 
If a curse meant aught, I would curse you for not having Jet me be. 

Visions of youth — for my brain was drunk with the water, it seems; 

I had past into perfect quiet at length out of pleasant dreams, 

And the transient trouble of drowning — what was it when match'd with the pains 

Of thehellish heat of a wretched life rushing back thro' the veins? 

Why should I live? one son had forged on his father and fled. 
And if I believed in a God, I would thank him, the other is dead. 
And there was a baby-girl, that had never look'd on the light: 
Happiest she of us all, for she past from the night to the night. 

But the crime, if a crime, of her eldest-born, her glory, her boast. 

Struck hard at the tender heart of the mother, and broke it almost; 

The', name and fame dying out for ever in endless time, 

Does it matter so much wdiether crown'd for a virtue, or hang'd for a crime? 



And ruin'd by him^ by him^ I stood there, naked, amazed 

In a world of arrogant opulence, fear'd myself turning crazed. 

And I would not be mock'd in a madhouse! and she, the delicate wife, 

With a grief that could only be cured; if cured, by the surgeon's knife, — 

Why should we bear with an hour ot torture, a moment of pain 

If every man die forever, if all his griefs are in vain. 

And the homeless planet at length will be wheel'd thro' the silence of space, 

Motherless evermore of an ever-vanishing race, 

When the worm shall have writhed its last, and its last brother-worm will have 

fled 
From the dead fossil skull that is left in the rocks of an earth that is dead? 

45 



704 



DESPAIR. 



Have I crazed myself over their horrible infidel writings? O yes, 
For these are the new dark ages, you see, of the popular press, 
When the bat comes out of his cave, and the owls are whooping at noon. 
And Doubt is the lord of this dunghill and crows to the sun and the moon, 
Till the Sun and the Moon of our science are both of them turn'd into blood, 
And Hope will have broken her heart, running after a shadow of good ; 
For their knowing and know-nothing books are scatter'd from hand to hand — 
We have knelt in your know^-all chapel too, looking over the sand. 

What! I should call on that Infinite Love that has served us so well? 
Infinite wickedness rather that made everlasting Hell, 

Made us, foreknew us, foredoomed us, and does what he will with his own; 
Better our dead brute mother who never has heard us groan! 

Hell? if the souls of men were immortal, as men have been told, 

The lecher would cleave to his lusts, and the miser would yearn for his gold. 

And so there were Hell for ever! but were there a God as you say. 

His Love would have power over Hell till it utterly vanished away. 

Ah yet — I have had some glimmer, at times, in my gloomiest woe. 

Of a God behind all — after all — the great God for aught that I know ; 

But the God of Love and of Hell together — they cannot be thought. 

If there be such a God, may the Great God curse him and bring him to naught! 

Blasphemy! whose is the fault? is it mine? for why would you save 

A madman to vex you with wretched words, who is best in his grave? 

Blasphemy! ay, why not, being damn'd beyond hope of grace? 

O would I were yonder with her, and away from your faith and your face! 

Blasphemy! true! I have scared you pale with my scandalous talk. 

But the blasphemv to my mind lies all in the way that you walk. 

Hence! she is gone! can I stay? can I breathe divorced from the Past? 
You needs must have good lynx-eyes if I do not escape you at last 
Our orthodox coroner doubtless will find it a felo-de-se, 
And the stake and the cross-road, fool, if you will, does it matter to me ? 




FrR 2^; 1 



-i^ 



